The sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair
by SalazarInADress
Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always? This story will have 13 chapters, and is complete
1. Chapter 1

Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: meeee

Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times

Word Count: Around 33k all together

Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?

Author notes: I don't have a beta so I apologise for pacing issues or grammar mistakes. This is a story I started like three years ago. The first 10k words are from then, and I've only changed them a little bit. The next 10k words are from about a year ago, and the final 10k are from the last week or two, so there's bound to be continuity errors also. It's not some masterpiece or anything, just a fic I finally finished haha.

**THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER**

Harry Potter had grown up to be half the man he was supposed to.

He thought that was a good joke, but Hermione disagreed when he'd told it to her. He wondered if any of the newspapers had run anything along those lines, although it was technically not correct. The other half of him was there, he just couldn't use it - The Boy Who Lived was now The Man Who Lived In A Wheelchair. They'd definitely used that one.

He was broken, if the public or papers were to be believed. No matter that he was one of the five strongest wizards to live in the last hundred years, or that muggles managed to get by in wheelchairs just fine - and he had magic to help get by. Nope, he couldn't walk and so that was that. It was a pain for sure, but the worst part about his disability wasn't anything to do with it or him. It was everyone else. All the people, the way they looked at him and the things they said. The ways they tried to help and the presumptions they made about him. He couldn't stand it - so he didn't.

They wanted him to go cut ribbons and announce grand openings, parties and the like. Or at least they had, for a while after his reappearance.

He stayed at home and did what he wanted instead, and that was drawing.

Even if he couldn't use his legs, his arms were still perfectly functioning. Overly functioning, even. He was constantly suffering from the fidgets, fiddling with everything he could get his hands on. He picked things up without realising, sometimes accidentally shoplifting. He would dutifully return or pay for the objects, but no one seemed to mind. He was disabled, wasn't he? As if that had anything to do with it.

When he wasn't fiddling, he was sketching. It hadn't been an intentional thing. It had started off as something his hands did without engaging his brain. During eighth year post-war-catch-up lessons, when the still-recent pains and memories kept him up at night, and the experimental healing potions messed with everything from his coordination to his skin colour, he had taken to doodling around the edges of his parchment. When he realised that no one was going to pick him up on it, the proportions had slowly inverted until he was writing class notes around the margins of his pictures. The only one who'd forced him to pay attention was Snape, and he hadn't begrudged the man that – he'd been the one dedicating countless days and nights to the potions Harry needed, in addition to repairs, lessons, detentions and head of house duties. For that year, he was the only person at Hogwarts who looked more worn out than Harry himself.

After the final exams were done, Harry had taken off without consult. It had been expected that he would stay there through the summer with Snape to find some cure or other, despite the fact that no new progress against the curse had been made in five months. His friends and teachers had talked at great length on the subject – where his rooms would be, his schedule, how often they would write each other. Without so much as a by your leave, they had assumed his future for him. It was like having a wheelchair was the same thing as having no brain. So he'd left.

He'd planned to travel. Europe first, then Asia and who knew where after that. He'd live the life no one thought he could.

First stop – Gringotts.

First problem – the steps.

During his attempts to acquire assistance, he had also gotten himself a lot of attention. Here was Harry Potter, finally out of Hogwarts. The real deal, right in front of everyone's eyes, and - well, _broken_. Upon finally entering the bank, he had not been able to get into the cart to access his vault. The public were watching, having followed him in off the street and the goblins were decidedly unhelpful despite the fact that Harry couldn't be the only wheelchair-bound wizard in all of London. It didn't help matters that he'd barely slept in weeks.

The least said about that day the better, though some tabloids begged to differ even years later.

He'd escaped the crowds, out into the streets of muggle London where he had checked himself into the nearest hospital and claimed amnesia. After his release into society, he had lived in a small high-rise flat where the lift was always broken, saving his living allowance for train tickets. It took six months for him to find out there were bills he'd been unaware needed paying, that he now had no chance of being able to pay. This took his saving capacity to about £-20 per month, if he was very careful about his food.

It took his friends almost two years to find him, during which time he had lived alone in a flat he could rarely leave, eating supermarket-brand microwave noodles and speaking to no one but the occasional social worker and his addict neighbour Gary. Whatever grand thoughts of travelling the world had existed before were well and truly wiped from his mind. His world was four walls, a chair and his sketchbook. A great many sketchbooks, really, all of which had been briskly shrunk down by Hermione for transport back to Hogwarts.

A lengthy and rather heated discussion about living arrangements had quickly followed, which Harry won. There wasn't much she could say in the end, when he demanded she treat him as a human being. He could remember it clearly, one of his few fogless memories of the time. "I'm a wizard," he'd said. "I'm a fucking wizard."

She'd snatched the cigarette from his hand in retribution. A very recent habit that he'd not much liked, but continued later just to spite her. To spite everyone.

She'd helped him find a single-floor cottage in a muggle town on the coast. He couldn't take his chair on the beach, though he was certain there should be charms for that sort of thing. If only spell crafting were his forte, he'd have got his new life sussed in no time.

As it was, he stayed off the beach - or anywhere outside of the house, if he was honest - he ate, bathed and sketched. He kept everything he drew so that he could do better next time. He'd never had art lessons, never drawn anything growing up except in the most dire cases of boredom, but it was different now. Like there was some energy in him that could only be expended this way. He couldn't put pen to parchment without sketching, and couldn't bear the feeling of his empty fingers otherwise.

It had been a few more years since, and his drawings had changed so much that even he was surprised – and he was the one spending hours every day with his hands greyed by charcoal, smudging his nose every time he pushed up his glasses.

His earliest doodles had been of classmates, teachers, figures from the war. People he knew. Then as he became more focussed, it was whatever was in front of him. He drew accurately, learning new techniques by mistake as this mysterious energy poured from arm to paper. There were ten or more books filled with images of the walls, windows and furniture of his old muggle flat, and his own hands. The view down to his weedy-looking legs.

After that, he'd gone back to what he knew. People and places, mostly from memory. He copied magazine photos. His friends knew to bring him something when they visited, if they wanted the courtesy of tea.

Tea was another good subject. He had a beautiful teapot from Molly, whose intricate and ever-changing pattern had managed to elude his pencils for six weeks already. Sometimes, the patterns cast shapes of light over the table. Sometimes, it cast a shadow instead.

Presently, his hand deftly flitted between pink and yellow hues for the very edges of its curves. He was working against time if he wanted to capture its interaction with the Spring's first sunset, which glowed through the small kitchen window behind.

"Honestly, did you listen to a word I just said?" Hermione admonished, reminding him that he wasn't alone. Tea, right. Tea meant guests. He looked up, giving her his usual brief smile.

"Of course," he replied, dropping the lemon pencil in favour of his box of fags. He flicked one out and lit it wordlessly. "We were talking about work. Ron is doing desk work again, and you want more hours."

Hermione held eye contact too long. He'd missed something – he took a long drag to win time. Having guests always made him remember the past, which was part of the reason he tried not to let people come and see him too often. "And?" she asked. Her hair bobbed, and he was momentarily caught in memorising how the curls lay through the folds of her dark robes. She snapped her fingers at him. "Merlin, Harry! Could you pay attention for just a second, _please_?"

Her tone took him back to first year, and he smiled sheepishly. She looked down at her hands. Her nails were immaculately kept, all trimmed to the same length and buffed to a neat shine without lacquer. He thought her hands too small though, and her fingers in particular were too short. Huh, he hadn't drawn hands in a while.

He used to draw a lot of hands in potions class. Long-fingered hands, with broken and stained nails.

"He's willing to give it another shot, Harry. Won't you think about it?"

Ah, he'd gotten distracted again. Who was she talking about? He supposed it didn't matter, nothing out there had anything to do with him in here. "Whatever you say, 'Mione. I trust your judgement," he said. It seemed like a safe bet.

She grinned, gripping the table edge with excitement. "That's so great. I just knew you'd say yes eventually. It's been so long, and I really think this we can crack it this time. You'll finally be able to get out there again and have a life _worth living_," she practically squealed the last words.

He held his face still to prevent a sneer from escaping. "My life already is worth living," he argued softly, but without hope of her listening. When it came to this topic, she would always make such a big show of listening to the words he said, considering them, and then completely ignoring anything he thought or felt on the subject of his own life. One would think she'd have learnt the lesson when he escaped the first time, but she only got more resolute with time. What exactly had he agreed to?

He was caught up in his own mind again, and only the mention of his least favourite name snapped him back to the room. "-think Ginny'll come to her senses, once she realises-"

"I'm busy," he said quickly, not wanting to hear anymore about it. He already knew _all about_ Hermione's views on his long-dead relationship, and was not about to spend an afternoon rehashing old arguments. He banished the tea set to the sink, including the cup that Hermione had been in the process of lifting.

With another spell, her chair scraped along the floor towards the fireplace, and she almost fell out of it. With a quick step and a finite, she sent him a vicious scowl as she grabbed a handful of floo powder from the dish. "Honestly, Harry. You can be such a child sometimes."

"Bye!" he called, already turning away.

When she was gone, he reopened the sketchbook and drew a preliminary sketch of her outraged expression. Fucking people. Fucking _Hermione_. There was only one person who knew what was best for him. It was not her, and it most certainly was _not_ Ginevra Molly Weasley.

She'd made it perfectly clear that she didn't want to be a part of his life after his return to the wizarding world. Granted, he'd up and left her at Hogwarts without a second thought, but he had neither told nor expected her to remain faithful all that time, pining for his lost love or whatever, the way she had. And yes, he'd been a bit ill-mannered and grumpy on his return, but then he was unused to having people talking to him all the time, touching him and expecting things. Expecting him to talk about his feelings, to apologise, to go back through everything he had run away from in the first place. Picking out his clothes and what he should eat, and complaining when he turned down this party invitation or that quidditch match.

They'd officially 'broken up' a few months later, but so far as he was concerned there had been nothing to break from, other than her invading his house and his space.

He sketched more furiously to banish unpleasant thoughts, getting lost instead in the small world in his lap. It was almost dark by the time he realised he still didn't know what he had agreed to, and then it was quickly forgotten again in the difficulty of capturing the colours of a flickering candle.

So it was that he was extremely surprised to find Professor Severus Snape standing on his hearth rug on Saturday morning.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: meeee

Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times

Word Count: Around 33k all together

Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?

Author notes: Um, so I posted the first chapter yesterday expecting no one to read it and no one to care, but I got more reviews on one chapter than I have on any other fic (not that I've published many) so I wanted to say thanks :) And also thanks to the people who decided it was worth following.  
I did obviously get a few more negative comments than usual too, and that's fine cos every one of them was legit and true. I've taken them on board as much as I can, and spent half the night going back over future chapters to try and give Harry some actual personality and backbone, and to improve the clarity of his general life goals. Although  
This is a fic I started writing from a plot bunny, and I didn't do any research or even have a plot line planned when I wrote these first few chapters - and that really shows. I also didn't get it beta'd and I didn't spend as long editing it as I should have, because well I didn't think anyone would read it at all... I'm not saying it gets any better (although I hope it does just a bit, cos there's 3 years between the first and last chapters) so I guess I'm just making excuses before you read on. xD It's not a realistic fic, and it's almost definitely not a realistic description of living with a serious disability or trying to navigate friendships and or relationship with one.  
I want to write fics about people and groups who are underrepresented or misrepresented in fanfiction and I can do better in the future (you know, I mean next year at my current rate of publishing xD), cos I fall into one of those groups myself and I know how amazing it feels when you find something after so long trawling through stuff that's so irrelevant to your life, and you're like_ oh my gosh that is me_. Finally. Anyway thanks for reading~

**THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER**

"Potter, I didn't come here to be sketched," Snape said from his position seated across the table. He looked like he would rather be anywhere else - a sentiment Harry shared, yet there he was.

"Did you bring me anything? Generally, if you don't want me to draw you, you have to bring me something else to draw," Harry replied. He definitely should pay more attention to Hermione in the future. He carried on with his portrait, but his mind was working on the best way of backing out from what he had apparently agreed to - for Snape to come stay at his house and try again at healing the curse damage that he'd been living with perfectly fine now for five years.

"Try sketching the vast knowledge and mastery of potions which allows me to make bespoke remedies for reluctant, invalid heroes. Something which I am loathe to share with you after your incredible snub of the first attempt."

Harry personally couldn't remember the first attempt, nor the second. He had a vague recollection of the third, which had briefly involved the use of needles. He would have said as much, but he was concentrating on getting the shape of Snape's lips right. They were flat and thin, a typical English mouth, but with a beautiful cupid bow on top. Besides, there wasn't often a need for words – silence begged to be filled, and even Snape could feel the pull.

"You know what I mean, Potter." The man leaned forward suspiciously to glance at Harry's sketch, then his mouth turned downwards. "Would you stop that!"

"Stop what?" Harry replied, hands moving now with extra haste. This was it, if he could just annoy the man enough, he would leave. He didn't need to say anything or argue about the treatment with Hermione, since there was no way it would last anyway. Within a week or two, one or both of them will have had enough, and Snape would go storming off back to Hogwarts to harass his students instead.

Snape's hand flew over the table, but stopped short of Harry's own still-sketching fingers. "Stop- drawing me." Instead of the expected raised voice, he enunciated the words quietly. Pleading, if such a thing were possible. Harry paused, clenching his hand against the tide of energy now crashing against his motionless muscles.

He looked up and met Snape's eyes properly for the first time. It had been four years. "Give me something else to draw, then."

The man sighed, arm still resting across the table, hand a bare inch from Harry's. He withdrew it to his robes, then pulled out a vial. It was small, no taller than his little finger, and empty. Harry studied it for a few moments, moving it this way and that before placing it just-so on the table. At that place and angle, he could just about see Snape's face reflected upside-down on the inside of the thick clear glass.

He got back to sketching, potions master already forgotten as he identified shapes and shadows. The way light bounced from the outside and the inside of the glass, and the desaturated half-rainbows it cast on the table.

"I don't suppose you could direct me to the kettle?" Snape asked, moments later. Without pause, Harry flicked his left hand and the tea set floated into the room like a train on a twisting track, pouring itself on the way. "A pretty trick," Snape commented, snatching a cup from the air, "and you remember how I take it."

How could he forget, after the time he had spent in the man's company? He'd basically been a glorified tea slave outside of lesson time.

Now that Harry's attention was diverted elsewhere, Snape seemed content to sit patient and still. Perhaps he was waiting for the sketch to be finished, thinking that soon Harry would be more open to discussion – however, as soon as he was happy with the first he began another iteration. He was never finished with drawing. It was the fastest method to learn, after all. Draw, draw, re-draw, re-draw. Each time, he picked up on something he hadn't noticed before. Still, Snape sat as if he had nowhere else to be all week, which Harry supposed he didn't. When he had finished his tea, he simply tapped the pot with his wand and poured again. He sat and gazed out the window with his fingers resting idly on the teacup handle for all the world as if he were as human as the rest of them. Harry knew that could not possibly be true.

Now it was he who grew restless. Anxious. The pressure in his arm grew until he could no longer escape the urge to draw Snape again. Just the hand this time, he told himself. The long nails, once cracked and yellow, were now carefully cut and buffed to a neat shine – though still potion-tinged - but everything else was as he remembered. Long, almost delicate fingers led to a strong palm. If he had been born muggle, surely Snape would have become a pianist.

"You're quite good."

He jumped guiltily, then hunched to cover the blush creeping over his neck. "I haven't done ten thousand yet," he said. He kept his eyes ducked to the parchment, drawing in the teacup from memory.

The chair opposite creaked, possibly as Snape turned or leaned back. "It seems to me that you must have drawn a great many more than that."

Harry glanced up. The room was lined with shelves, mostly filled with reading books he had moved from Grimmauld Place – which he'd discovered was definitely not Wheelchair-friendly Place – but also with old sketchbooks. There were tens of the thick tomes in this room alone. "Not pictures – hours. Ten thousand hours is how long it takes to become a master at anything." He remembered that Snape was a master of potions, which had probably taken longer, so he added: "According to muggles."

When nothing else was forthcoming, he returned to his sketches. Snape's hand was almost exactly as it had been before, though he must have moved it when he leaned back. Huh, so he was letting Harry draw him. His hand, anyway.

Why now, when not earlier? Was it just that he was grumpy until he had tea? Or had he been nervous upon first entering the house? Harry frowned at the idea of Snape ever being nervous. That would be too... normal.

He realised that he'd stopped sketching. Snape had noticed too, and quietly moved both hands under the table, out of sight. "I don't like to be looked at," Snape said. The admission must have been difficult, but his face was unreadable.

"We looked at you in class." Harry retorted. "And I sketched you that summer, and in lessons. Didn't you notice?"

"I was your professor."

Harry stared, uncomprehending, until Snape offered more.

"Your sketchbook, you have it with you always?" he asked. Harry nodded. "If you were to sit opposite me now without it, would you be the same or would you be changed?"

Harry frowned, shook his head in confusion.

"Where is your tongue? Did you lose it?"

Harry opened his mouth and stuck it out, which only made the man scowl. Snape rolled his eyes minutely and went back to drinking tea. Harry almost sputtered – how dare Snape play the silent game on him! He was the master of the silent game!

Hastily, and with exaggerated movements, he turned back to his sketchbook. But for the first time, he couldn't concentrate on the paper. For months on end, he had barely glanced at anything else except for reference, but all of a sudden he could hardly bear to look at it. Damn. Was he so easy to read, or was he being played? Led along like a good little rat. Well, fine.

"Why is it different?" he asked.

"Who am I?"

Harry blinked. "That's a bit deep for discussing over tea, isn't it?"

"Say my name." Despite the shortness of his words, they were neither barked nor ground, simply stated. It didn't even sound like a challenge, which most things between them had, historically.

"Snape." Harry shrugged.

Said Snape leaned forward in a very Dumbledoresque movement. If he'd been wearing glasses, he would have been looking over the top of them for certain. "Yes, but which one?"

Now utterly confused, Harry grasped the edges of his book tightly. "You're a twin?" he guessed. "Split personality? Snape by day, bat by night. Vampire? I don't know." Come to think of it, he'd never seen Snape's reflection in a mirror... Ah, but there was the vial on the table.

The corner of Snape's mouth twitched, not downwards as usual, but the other way. The way his mouth never went, because he was Snape, Potions Master, Professor and much feared Head of Slitherin House. He didn't – he couldn't – _smile_.

Realisation crawled over him. "You're not my teacher any more. You're..." Here, he struggled. He called Minerva by her given name during rare, impatient visits, and had once managed a grimaced _Horace –_ but they were people too, in a way Snape had never been. He swallowed away the feeling of his closing throat. "Severus."

The man gave a slow, accepting nod. "Harry," he returned softly.

The moment was too close, almost suffocating. Harry withdrew from it like a curling toe from pond water. "So potions is your sketching," he said, watching the pencil turn in his fingers.

"Hmm. It is a refuge that requires the full attention of both body and mind, leaving no space for doing or thinking… more _unpleasant_ things."

Harry's heart slowed, dragging the moment out with it. Snape couldn't understand. No one could understand. How could Snape understand? He'd tried explaining it to Ron, in a great torrent of insufficient words.

_It's like, I don't have to think about anything. I don't have to remember, or see what's not here now. Right now, this moment. I can look Hermione in the eye and see all the light and the colour, and how the lashes are slightly reflected on the surface of the eyeball, and not think about how she looked after Bellatrix- after... everything. Things are everywhere, and they're always reminding me. Even trees! Trees, and cars and people and scars and spells and- and just everything. And then I'm thinking, and I hate thinking, because that's all I can do. And I don't have to see how everyone's looking at me, because the shadow of their nose over their cheek is way more interesting than pity. And it's something to do. I can't ride, I can't walk or run, or even crawl properly. I don't have to sit here just thinking, thinking, thinking THINKING, stuck in my own head all day because I'm shit company. I'm just... shit. I'm so fucking shit, Ron._

He could never have boiled it down to so simple a sentence, delivered calmly yet with all that experience behind it. That understanding. He hadn't expected to find any, yet here it was – from Snape, who he would probably be expected to call Severus from now on, and who he hoped never to see again for that sole reason, yet needed to for every other reason.

The pencil fell into his lap as he covered his face.

"Harry-"

"I'm fine!" he snapped, and with that the quiescence was broken.

Snape's chair scraped back over the tiled floor. "Thank you for the tea. If you'll excuse me, I have a laboratory to set up."

When Harry dared remove his hands, the man was gone. He lit a cigarette.

He didn't see Snape again for two days. Apparently, laboratories were a lot of work to put together. He finished his sketchbook and started a new one. Secretly, he knew that this one would be full of _him_. If he could convince the man to sit still again. And again. And again, and again, and again...

He'd spent years resolutely not thinking about the past, Snape included, but now it was unavoidable. Strangely, he found that he didn't mind. He had something new to draw, after all. That face, those eyes - familiar, but somehow not. That giant hawk nose, and the lanky hair that fell around it. He wondered what Snape's ears looked like, and if he could convince the wizard to show him. And those thin lips, he wanted to draw them too. Even the crooked yellow teeth. The long neck and elegant nape, the bony wrists.

Everything.

It was bad luck that when he wheeled into the kitchen and saw Snape making breakfast, there was no sketchbook to hand, and no pencil. He took it upon himself to memorise every detail instead.

The man's hair was parted at the nape, split like curtains over pale skin, and fell forward past his bowed head. He stood casually, one hand resting on the bar in front of the AGA, on which Harry usually draped tea towels to dry. In his other hand was a paperback book, which he seemed to be engrossed in. Yellowish morning light poured lazily from the window to his side, casting a lighter hue on his black shirt. He wore no robe, though the shirt was buttoned right up to the neck and halfway over his hand to the base of his thumb.

On the stove, bacon sizzled in a modern but much-used and blackened muggle frying pan. It sent steam twirling up into the air, which hit the ceiling and then fanned out over Snape's head. As Harry watched, the man felt about with his hand, presumably for the cheap plastic spatula. He didn't look up from his book to do so, but didn't react with surprise when his finger touched the pan. With a hiss of pain, he raised it to his mouth.

Harry wished that he had the power to pause time, so that he could memorise that moment. He'd probably have to draw it tens of times before he could get it right – wet tongue darting out to meet the finger a moment before it was drawn behind his lips. The flash of teeth, and the bottom lip bent down to accommodate. He wanted to remember everything.

Knowing that he'd be in trouble if he got caught staring, Harry was careful to let the wheels squeak as he propelled himself into the kitchen area. Snape glanced up and quickly snatched his finger out of his mouth. "Breakfast?" he asked.

Harry shrugged. He usually didn't bother – he didn't tend to get hungry. Then again, it would be an excuse to sit opposite from his study... "Yes," he said. Then, after a moment, "please."

He tried not to make it too obvious that he was watching Snape turn the bacon, even as he tried to imprint on his mind the contrast between the backlit steam billowing against the man's face and his dark, fine hair. He summoned his new sketchbook and his second favourite pencil set – his first favourite had the best range through red and magenta, but Snape's tones were cooler than that. He needed subtle blues that could serve as undercoat for the black.

A plate appeared before him, on which sat a bacon sandwich. "Eat before you get the pencils out, Potter."

It was probably in his best interests to do as instructed for now. He had to appear obedient so that he could get what he wanted later. Surprisingly, once he took the first bite it turned out that he was hungry after all. He wondered if Snape had put something in it to increase his appetite. He watched the old professor through his fringe. The man ate delicately, as much as was possible with a bacon sandwich. He didn't hold the bread so tightly that it squished, or pull the bacon out with his teeth. When he licked the grease from his lips, Harry noted the shape of his tongue for later reference.

"Stop that."

Harry ducked his head again, trying to concentrate on the food in his hands. The texture of bread was something he had only studied a little, last year. He could do with a refresher.

When he was done, Snape took both their plates to the sink. "I can do that, myself." Harry said. Why was it that everyone tried to do things for him, as if he couldn't manage even the simplest of magic, just because he couldn't use his legs? He didn't need them. He didn't need his legs, and he didn't need any busy-body potions profess-

"I know you can," Snape replied.

Harry huffed, opening his sketchbook. He'd left the last sketch half-finished, but felt no desire to continue with it so he turned to a fresh page. He longed to draw Snape at the oven while the memory was still fresh, but he daren't do it while the man was there. He drew bread instead, then a hand holding it, and an arm after that. His heart skipped a beat as Snape returned to his place at the table, tea set following behind like a line of ducklings, and started on a fresh piece before he could get any further. Just the bread this time, he promised himself.

"Are they in any particular order?"

Harry glanced up just long enough to see Snape motion to the shelves. He pulled the book half onto his lap so that he could hide his drawings, and continued to sketch. "By date. Those are the oldest." He tilted the end of his pencil mid-stroke towards the farthest wall.

"What about at Hogwarts, do you have those drawings still?"

He paused. Before the books had taken over, he'd doodles on class notes and scrap parchment, the backs of homework assignments and even his exam papers. Snape featured quite heavily, and didn't look particularly good in any of them. They were before Harry had been enlightened to Snape's absolute drawability. Then again, what did he have to lose by letting the old professor have a flick through? The worst that could happen was that he'd get a bit upset, but the man had been remarkably good at holding it in so far. Second worse was a shouting match, and Harry relished the chance to memorise some different facial expressions. With his mouth wide open shouting, Harry would be able to see right down to his tonsils.

"Chest of drawers under the window. Oldest at the top." He tried to sound nonchalant. He pulled out a cigarette while Snape's back was turned. Hopefully he'd get a drag or two in before they were confiscated.

Snape went for the top drawer first, slowly pulling out the dry bundle of parchment. He brought it back to the table, leaving the drawer open behind him. Harry let the fag hang against his lower lip as he drew a succession of ten-second figure sketches. He'd almost finished it when Snape gave a loud sniff, lifting his eyes with a frown.

"You smoke," he noted.

"Muggle ones," Harry answered unnecessarily. Snape watched him for a long moment, considering. Then he shook his head in a very _young-people-these-days _way, and sat back down.

Harry didn't notice that he was looking too long again, until Snape quietly rested two fingers against the bridge of his nose, hand half-obscuring his face in a self-conscious gesture. It was a good pose though.

"Have you thought about exhibiting?" Snape asked a few minutes later. "I'm sure any number of galleries would be ecstatic to show works by the famous Harry Potter." Even that wasn't said with the contempt he'd have imagined from the man.

Harry felt his lip curl, and fought to straighten his face but couldn't keep the distain from his voice. This was another topic he'd been over time and time again with Hermione. "Yeah, I'm sure it'd go down great. Remember that super powerful, young wizard who brought down Voldemort? I wonder what he's up to these days... Oh look, here's twelve _million_ pictures of a table leg. Turns out he's a bit of a loser now."

"Perhaps so," Snape answered, making Harry scowl. He wasn't supposed to agree. "But perhaps there would also be those who appreciate your drawings for what they are. Even I can begrudgingly admit that you have some talent for capturing the essence and loveliness of everyday items - even table legs."

Loveliness was not on the top ten list of words he thought he'd hear from Snape, not in relation to himself anyway. Hell, it wasn't in the top ten _thousand_ words, but he was fairly certain that's what he'd heard. "I do have talent," he agreed. "And it's mine. I don't owe it to anyone, just because of who I am or what I did. I gave my legs for everyone else, and I would have given my life too. But these hands? These books? And these bloody pencils - they're for me, and me alone."

Snape held up his hands in a surrendering motion and didn't ask any more about it. Harry was suspicious of his constant backing down. Wasn't he going to argue with a single thing he said, or convince Harry that he was being a total dunderhead? The fact that he wasn't doing that was pretty peculiar. Whatever game he was playing, it was obviously going to be a long one.

They sat in silence for most of the morning while Harry drew, and Snape studied the yellowed old pages from Hogwarts, occasionally getting up to hunt out the next bundle. They drank tea, and it felt like the most ordinary and natural thing in the world.

He meant to tell the professor that he wasn't needed, that he could go home and leave Harry alone now please. He really did. But somehow the time ticked on by and Snape did nothing annoying, aggravating or inconsiderate. Nothing Harry could use to prove how catastrophic this would end up being. It was just good, quiet, amicable company - something he had forgotten existed when the other person thought you were an actual human being. So somehow - well, through no fault but his own passivity - he ended up keeping Snape on. For now, at least.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: meeee

Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times

Word Count: Around 33k all together

Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?

Author notes: Day three. Warnings for stupid decisions. Another canister of midnight oil burnt trying to add a reason for them, since apparently when I wrote this three years ago I didn't think anyone needed reasons to make stupid choices. xD I think after this it gets better because I got to a point where I actually knew where the story was going while writing it. Again, thanks for reading, and for favs/follows and comments.

**THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER**

He didn't expect for them to meet again for another couple of days, but Snape was back that very evening. "I'll have you know that I shan't be cooking every meal for you. You have arms for yourself." The man informed him, as a bowl of reddish soup clacked down in front of him.

Not having noticed until that moment that he wasn't alone, he was too slow in covering the page. "What-" Snape began, then deftly snatched the book from Harry's lap. "When... You have quite the imagination, Potter."

Harry tried to grab the book back. "It wasn't my imagination!" He sputtered indignantly. "You burnt your finger on the pan this morning, I saw it."

Snape held the book just out of reach and flicked back through the pages. Oh Merlin, how many times had he tried to get it right? He couldn't bear to watch as Snape looked through pages and pages of his own mouth, tongue darting out to meet his hand. Now that he could think about it objectively, they probably looked quite lewd.

He had too much pride to sink his head into his hands, so he tried for uncaring instead. Turning away, he picked up the shiny silver spoon. "I just draw what I see." He scooped up a spoonful of soup and began to eat. It tasted great, unsurprising for a potions master, but his thoughts were on the sketchbook in Snape's hands.

Snape moved around the table to sit on the other side. He picked up a piece of parchment that was curled and torn around the edges. An early sketch, probably. "Your technique has greatly improved, but your likeness has diminished somewhat." Snape turned the parchment round for Harry to see.

He didn't grimace, but it was a close thing. It was an early depiction, more caricature than anything else. The nose was overly large, the hair a dark block, and the fingers were pointed like needles. He looked decidedly evil, and nothing at all like the Snape of reality.

"I draw what I see," he said again.

Snape humphed. "So you used to see this, and now you see this." He tilted each image in turn, then shook his head slowly. He used the parchment as a bookmark, and set them both aside. "You're more ill than I had previously thought."

Harry tried to take another spoonful of soup, but the missing sketchbook made him feel exposed and uncomfortable. He wasn't about to ask Snape to give him back what was his, so he accio'd it into his lap, almost knocking over the bowl in front of him. He thumbed the cover carefully and sipped from the edge of his spoon, watching the other man from behind the curtain of his fringe.

"You could..." He began, then cleared his throat. "If you're worried about accuracy, then you could sit for me." Harry said quietly. He almost hoped that Snape wouldn't hear.

For a minute, he was certain that he hadn't. Then, almost as quietly: "Alright."

Harry looked up sharply. "Really?"

Snape sat back, irritated. "Your treatment will be unpleasant, perhaps more-so than before, but I can't have you running off before it is done. Perhaps this should serve as incentive, though I have no idea what could possibly fascinate you so much about-"

"You'll do what I say, right?" Harry found himself leaning over the table as far as his chair would allow.

Snape frowned. "I concoct your treatment and cook your meals, what more could you want me to do? I am neither slave nor house elf."

"No. I mean... Just, like, sitting a certain way or- or holding your wand or something..."

"Holding... my wand?"

Harry felt the blush run over his skin. "Nothing like that!" he squawked. "I'd only tell you how to sit, where to look. And you have to keep still, until I say."

"For one hour only."

A whole hour? Great! He could get a lot of quick figure sketches done in that time, and flesh them out later... "Am I still allowed to draw you outside of that time, like when you're brewing?"

Snape picked up their bowls, giving the food left in Harry's a disapproving look. "You were never 'allowed' to draw me in the first place."

"Yeah, but can I now?"

"I'd rather you didn't spend your entire day staring at me."

"Can I, though?"

Snape all but threw the bowls into the sink. "It's your house, Potter. I think we both know that no words of mine will bind you. Do as you like."

Harry smiled. "Then I'll wash the dishes." He reversed out from under the table and wheeled over to Snape's angry form. "I'm not totally invalid, you know." He raised a hand to levitate the chair – a bit more impressive than cleaning charms – but Snape stopped him.

"Wait."

He looked uncomfortable. More specifically, the kind of uncomfortable that preceded bad news. "I'm sorry, but due to the particular magical nature of the curse... You won't be able to use most magic for the duration of the treatment. You needn't worry however, as I will take care of the daily running of the household, and you may use simple charms such as nox, provided that you do not cast wandlessly."

Harry stared, aghast.

Needn't worry? He _needn't worry?_

A knot tightened in his stomach. "What about other charms? For fetching things, I mean."

"I understand that it will be inevitably required, and an accio every now and then will do no harm. You may call me, should you ever require assistance."

"How many is every now and then?" Harry persisted, though his mind was on the myriad other magics he used every day just to get by.

Snape made a vague gesture. "No more than two or three verbal spells per day in total, and no wordless or wandless magic. Ah, and no persistent charms."

No-? Did Snape have _any_ idea just how much he relied on wandless magic for even the simplest things? He couldn't say it. He didn't want Snape to know that he had to cast warming charms over his legs to stop them turning blue, or that he levitated over the toilet just to wipe his bum - and in the bath prevent himself from drowning while washing his hair. And to get in and out of his chair... He didn't want Snape to see any of this. And he most certainly didn't want any person, but particularly this one, helping him go to the toilet!

That was it. No matter how desperately he wanted to draw the man, the price was too high. His hands itched for it, but he couldn't. He couldn't do it, but he also couldn't shake off the feeling that all that restless energy he felt flowing down his arm, it was for this. "For how long?" he asked, trying not to let his worry show through. If it was only a few weeks, he could surely manage, the way muggles did. However that was - he'd never actually needed to find out before.

"I don't know. As long as it takes."

"How long is as long as it takes?"

"How long is a piece of- Harry, there's no need for anger. I cannot tell you what I don't know." Snape was evidently holding back his own anger, trying to sound calm. Harry hated it. Couldn't he see how much of a problem this was going to be? And all he could say was _it could take a year, but don't worry I can do the dishes for you_. It was so-

_Tell him,_ he thought angrily. Now was not the time for pride. He just had to open his mouth and say that he couldn't do without magic, because he'd never actually learned any of the tricks or skills necessary for living with his condition, because magic did all that for him. He couldn't go through with it because he'd never bothered finding out what sort of modifications the house would ordinarily need, or what he could do to face any of the myriad tiny obstacles he could safely ignore with a spell or two. High cupboards? No problem, magic. Low cupboards? Magic. Wheel caught behind a rock? Magic. Getting in the bathtub? Magic. Washing the dishes? Magic. Even bloody bladder control! Magic, magic, magic. He might have been in the wheelchair for five years now, but those were five years as a wizard. He couldn't be disabled like a _muggle _now, after all this time. It would be stupid - and more importantly, it would be dangerous.

He looked at Snape. Got the words he had to say together in his mind, the words any person in their right mind would say. He took a breath, and-

"Argh!" he threw his hands in the air, then twirled his chair around to face the window and opened his sketchbook. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

He picked a bold pencil and started scribbling. Just a cube, a dark cube he could fill with the blackest graphite.

Snape approached slowly, as if he were some wild animal in need of taming. Before the man could dare open his mouth the tell Harry how childishly he was behaving - how childishly he _knew_ he was being - he gave in. "Fine," he said without looking up from his furious scribbling. He was aware that Snape must think he was angry at him, at the situation, but he wasn't. The only person he could possibly be angry with was himself, and his stupid cocky independence. "You cook, and clean stuff up, and make this stupid potion, but nothing else. I can look after myself." The lie flew word by word between them, and Harry wasn't sure what he hoped – that Snape would believe it, or that he would not.

Snape straightened abruptly, nostrils flaring. "It is not a '_stupid potion'_, Potter. It is a long and complex medical treatment for which I have given up my own time to live here, so that I might spend five hours per day brewing _incredibly_ difficult concoctions, for an indefinite period, to change your life with no benefit to myself." He snapped.

Harry clenched his fists and pressed his lips together. It was so like Snape to think about how it inconvenienced _him_, and to throw it in Harry's face what a bloody martyr he was being, helping out the poor invalid. What a great fucking guy. He let the anger boil up inside, but kept his mouth shut. An argument here wasn't worth the effort. He waited until Snape's stomping footsteps had reached the door, then in a further moment of childishness he whispered "Dickhead."

He couldn't be sure if he was heard, but the door slammed shut with a bang.

As soon as Snape was gone, Harry slouched in his chair. He pressed his hands against his face, nails digging into his forehead. He'd been a total idiot to think that Severus Snape of all people could understand him. He understood nothing but anger, malice and... And he'd been so pleasant until now. So bloody good. And Harry wanted to draw him again, which was so stupid a reason to attempt this that it wasn't a reason at all. It was barely an excuse.

His wheelchair charms would run out this afternoon. He'd smell like an old man on a bus, and there wouldn't be a vase, glass or shelf left unbroken from him knocking into things. It was totally unfeasible. Absolutely impossible. He couldn't just carry on and hope for the best, because there wasn't a 'best' without magic. He clearly had to come clean about everything.

Snape didn't reappear and Harry didn't have the courage to knock on the door, so he had all afternoon to think about it. Unfortunately, Harry was not one of those people who came up with better plans with time - he was the kind of person who could convince himself that whatever course of action he _wanted_ was the correct one.

He took his wallet, his wand and all of his muggle money, along what little time he had left with the maintenance charms - and took a trip into the village. He wouldn't ordinarily take so many notes outside, but who knew what he'd find he needed once he was there, and it wasn't like anyone was going to mug a disabled guy. Not in this judgemental curtain-twitching town, anyway.

The friction charm was the first to go, when he was halfway to Boots. It failed by increments, making it harder to propel himself until all of a sudden it wasn't there at all. He huffed with the effort, refusing to turn back. Muggles did this every day, and he was basically one of them now so he'd just have to get used to it. The inherent weakness of his left arm, which had been as useless and dead as his legs until Snape had treated it way back at Hogwarts, caused the chair to turn slightly with every push. This meant he had to stop every few feet to straighten up, which was perhaps even more frustrating than the effort itself.

Needless to say, he was already in a foul mood when he rolled up to Boots, only to find a step in his way. There was a square silver button next to the door, with a wheelchair user painted on in blue. "Press for assistance," it read. He gulped, prepared to take this small hit to his pride to spare him a larger one later.

When he pressed it, the door hissed open so that he could see properly inside, but the step remained a step. Harry stared, waiting for something else. Maybe a ramp, or an elevator hidden under the pavement.

The door slid closed again.

The disbelief was so strong that he couldn't move for a moment. He glanced at the button which, yes he hadn't been mistaken, clearly depicted a person in a wheelchair. Then he looked at the door. He pressed the button again, this time more forcefully. When the door opened, he pressed it a second time, then hit it over and over with his palm. No ramp, nothing. Just an open door taunting him with the bright shelves he couldn't peruse. He looked around to see if there was anyone nearby who might spot a levitating chair. There was a man crossing the road with his dog. Fuck sake.

After a minute, a woman in her thirties peered round a shelf from wherever she had been hiding. She wore thick make-up and a white smock with the shop logo on her chest. "Do you want to come in?" she asked.

He took several calming breaths. It was a good thing he wasn't allowed to use magic, or she would have been absolutely fried. "Yes please," he said as politely as he could. Inside, he raged. What the fuck else had she thought he wanted?

"Right. I'll have to go get the ramp, then. Be with you in a minute."

The door closed between them, and Harry backed off. He watched the quiet road in order to stop thinking about how he was surrounded by inconsiderate arseholes, and got more annoyed as he noticed more pedestrians crossing the road to avoid him.

To her credit, the woman - Janine, her name tag said - jammed the door open and put down the ramp efficiently, and even asked his permission before pushing him up the steep incline. It definitely wasn't designed for independent users, so he had assented through his teeth.

Once inside he encountered the next problems, because apparently he hadn't had enough of them yet – narrow isles and high shelves. He managed not to knock anything down thanks to the surviving charms, but he had to ask the shop lady to help him reach some things. She took them straight to the counter instead of handing them to him, which rankled. What if he wanted to check the labels, or compare brands? It was quite literally out of his hands.

He kept telling himself that it was worth a million indignities in front of strangers to save him just the one of Snape knowing that he had pissed himself. Then again, he couldn't let her know that this was going to be a problem, either. Some things were just too embarrassing. He decided that it was the lesser of two evils to buy a few packs of women's pads instead of incontinence pants. She smiled at him, maybe thinking what a lovely boyfriend he was - or what a weird creep, and then glanced down to his legs, probably wondering what he did with them during sex. If people in wheelchairs could have sex.

Without speaking for others, Harry could say that it was definitely out of the question for him. His penis sat as limp and devoid of sensation as the legs to either side of it. It was possibly the one part of the curse he didn't think he would ever be content with, and the one part he would never ever talk to anyone about, ever. Not being able to walk was one thing, but not being able to, er - procreate - was... It was something he didn't like to think about. The one way in which he truly felt less human than those around him.

"Is there anything else?" Janine asked, packing the pads and muggle painkillers into a bag for him. Thankfully, she didn't try to stop him from buying six packs of paracetamol at once, ringing them up as three separate purchases for him. She clearly understood that it was a long journey into the village, and not one he wanted to make every time his two legally-obtained boxes ran out.

He looked about for a moment, then realised that he'd need more soap and things now that he couldn't use cleaning charms. He bought two bars of soap and a flannel, then added a shaving razor and foam, and a can of Lynx. If all else failed, he would cover up the old man smell, or at least make it so unbearable for Snape to be in the same room that he kept away. "Do you sell cigarettes?" he asked, finally.

She frowned, but covered it up quickly. It was none of her business if the young man in a wheelchair wanted to smoke. "Sorry, no. You'll have to go down the Spar. It's at the bottom of the hill."

He grimaced.

"Don't worry, they have a ramp," she assured him. "A proper one, I mean. Concrete. It's very good." She added, as if from personal experience.

After paying, he was helped back out of the shop and directed down the street to a Spar he could see in the distance. He thanked the lady. After all, she'd done her best.

His arms ached from the effort of not letting the chair roll out of control down the hill. It wasn't particularly steep, but it was enough to worry him. He'd have to get back up afterwards, somehow. He passed a Peacocks on the way down, and decided he needed a rest. The automatic door was wide and opened right onto the pavement, no need for a ramp.

He bought two new packs of pants in shades of grey, then decided to treat himself to a jumper as well. He was going to need it, now that he wouldn't have spells to regulate his body temperature. He'd need a blanket for his legs as well, but the shop employee couldn't think of anywhere that would sell something suitable, apart from the super expensive tourist shop that sold locally made, organic woollen blankets for £200 a go. Ah well, he probably had something at home. While thinking about it, he leaned down to feel the skin of his ankle. Still warm. He admonished himself for not checking earlier.

The assistant put his bag with the other hanging from one of the push handles behind.

The ramp at Spar was indeed a lot better than Boot's pitiful offering. When he got to the top though, the door frame was one of those plastic ones with a bump at the bottom. He got the front wheels over by holding the frame and leaning back in his chair, then it took two attempts to get his back wheels in. Once inside, there was hardly room to turn in the main avenue, let alone get down the isles. At least he didn't need milk, which he could see standing in a humming refrigerator unit down the far end. He went straight to the till and asked for a potential lifetime supply of cigarettes.

"You can't get that many," the disinterested man said in a drone. "They're bad for your health."

Harry'd had enough. "Fuck my health," he snapped. "I'm in a fucking wheelchair, in case you didn't notice mate. It's taken me over half an hour to get here, and God knows how long it'll take me to get home, so I'm not doing it every other bloody day. I don't give a shit if you think I can smoke or not, because I have bigger things to fucking worry about. Like whether or not I'm going to piss myself, or how to wipe my own bloody arse when I've done one, so just give me the fucking fags so I can pay and fuck off."

The man opened his mouth like a fish, reminding Harry of Dudders that first night when Hagrid had broken down the door. How could a guy in a wheelchair possibly know how to swear? Disabled people didn't swear. Harry would have punched him if he could reach, but thankfully the man hurriedly pulled down a few packs and stuffed them in a thin carrier bag.

"I need twenty." Harry said, just to push it.

The man looked at the contents of the bag, then back up at the wall of fags behind the counter doubtfully. "You'll have to get a different brand, then. Unless you don't mind menthols."

Harry shrugged. "Whatever."

He handed over the money – a staggering amount, cash. "You know, it'd be worth you getting them from the duty-free, if you want this many. It'd save you an arm and a- uh."

Harry turned the chair with difficulty, knocking a packet of crisps from its holder on his way out.

"I don't travel."


	4. Chapter 4

Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: meeee

Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times

Word Count: Around 33k all together

Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?

Author notes: Warning for chapter containing genitalia. Also Harry continuing to be a total idiot. Thanks again for all the views, follows, favs and reviews.

**THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER**

It was a long way home, and he was glad that Snape wasn't around when he arrived. Sweat rolled down his forehead and back, and his hair stuck unpleasantly to the back of his neck. He managed not to knock anything down as he went straight to the bathroom to wipe his face and put everything away. His wheels squeaked on the tiles as he used the sink to lever himself round and access the bags. He balanced them on the toilet lid, then flopped back into the chair for a moment's rest. Easy. Absolutely nothing to worry about.

It had taken him much longer to get home than it had to get into town. He'd had to stop several times to rest his arms, and they now felt like heavy lumps attached to his shoulders, immovable as his legs. He had to move them anyway - he had a lot to do before Snape came looking.

He put away the shampoo, shaving foam and razor without incident, each feeling like they were made of lead. When he pulled out the soap bars, he knocked the second bag from its perch, sending twenty packs of cigarettes clattering across the floor. Fuck.

He used his hands on the arms of his chair to shift his bum back, manoeuvred his legs to the side one at a time and tried to reach the floor. His fingers just barely skimmed the cardboard packets, and he couldn't quite pick them up. Trying made his back ache, so he sat back and sighed. Double fuck and damn.

Whatever, he could get them later. He ignored them in favour of the bath. If he'd thought he'd ever be in this position, he'd have had a shower installed like Hermione suggested along with a million other improvements like hand rails and some kind of levitating toilet seat that picked you up out of the chair. Regardless, he needed to wash before Snape could see the state he was in. He imagined what the potions master might assume on seeing his patient pale, shaking and covered head to toe in sweat.

He turned on the hot tap, which gurgled a few times before spitting out water. He let the water carry the plug down, then poked it with a long bottle of bubble bath to secure it in the plug hole. So far so good, he reversed back out of the room, taking the peacocks bag with him.

The chest of drawers for his clothes was easy to manage. The drawers ran on plastic muggle casters that were thankfully smooth to pull. He picked out a clean outfit, combed his hair and placed a towel on his lap. He returned to the bathroom just in time to stop it from getting too full, which would have been a disaster considering he couldn't pull the plug to let out water. He tested the temperature with an elbow. Too hot, and without magic he had no choice but to wait for it to cool by itself.

In the meantime, he closed the door and undressed himself. This was no more a task than usual, as he hadn't worked out any useful spells for it, except that he had to take it slow for his exhaustion. He threw his dirty washing into the basket, wondering if Snape would be cleaning them from now on. He couldn't imagine trying to drag that thing through the house to the machine. Did Snape even know how to use a muggle washing machine?

He gave the cigarettes another go, this time lowering himself carefully to the ground using the chair and toilet seat. He fell the last few inches, bumping on the floor. Once down there, he noted how cold the tiles felt against his hands, yet his naked legs and buttocks felt nothing. His legs stretched out in front of him, reminding him that yes they did go further than the knee, despite the fact that he never actually saw the rest of them. Even now they weren't flat or straight, but stuck in a permanent bend with his feet curled inwards. He fumbled open a cardboard packet and pulled out a menthol with a relieved sigh. Yes, this was just what he needed after the long day he'd had.

Except how was he supposed to light it?

Even knowing there was nothing, he cast about for a long-forgotten lighter or a box of matches. A flint and steel. A few sticks. Anything, really. He couldn't even take light from a candle, because Hermione had insisted it was safer to fill the place with bright muggle lighting, in case he knocked one and burnt the house down. He didn't feel like that would be such a tragedy right now.

He sat for a while, fag hanging forlorn from his lip, back pressed uncomfortably into his knobbly wheelchair. He'd have to get up at some point, but he didn't have the energy. Then again, if he took too long then Snape might come looking... And find Harry sitting naked in a sea of cigarettes he couldn't light, next to a bath he couldn't get in by himself.

Oh, fuck it. Snape had said he could cast one or two small charms, and it probably wouldn't make a difference today, would it? He made a small flame to light the cigarette in his shaking fingers, and took a deep satisfying drag.

While he was here and naked with nothing better to do as he waited for the bath to cool, he let his free hand explore the flesh he usually kept covered. Running his fingers from stomach to leg was a strange experience - down to a certain point just above the hip bone, he could feel both his fingers on his belly and his belly under his fingers. Then suddenly it was like laying hands on a stranger, for all he could feel his own hand.

There was sometimes a patch on the inside of his left leg where he thought he could catch a ghost of sensation, but not today. Inevitably, slowly, he was drawn from legs to the true source of interest. His dick sat flaccid and lifeless between his legs, as useless for masturbation as it had been for sex. He held it in his hand, trying to remember what it had felt like to hold before.

His heart picked up a more rapid beat, but there was no effect on the thing in his hand. Still, it was somewhat satisfying to hold it, to know it was still there. It was almost like holding someone else's. Well, he thought it was. He hadn't actually done anything like that, but still... He took another long drag of the cigarette, dropping his head back to stare at the smoke rising to the ceiling as his mind wandered. He used this cigarette to light another when it was almost done.

He shouldn't have gone into town today. He could have put off bathing for a few days, time enough to work out a new system. With the way he looked and smelled now, he didn't have that choice. And it only took the last few minutes to tell that he didn't have the arm strength to manoeuvre himself in and out of the chair with any precision. He could fall out of the chair in a somewhat controlled way, and he could - probably - crawl and climb his way back into it, but moving and rotating himself to get on the toilet was going to be... A challenge.

Sighing, he reached for the edge of the tub and pulled himself closer. Now that he'd used one spell for lighting a fag, it would be silly not to levitate himself into the bath. But then, Snape had said no wandless magic whatsoever and he'd already broken that rule once. "Come on, just get it over with," he muttered. "You can do it the muggle way at least once, can't you?" Then again, it wasn't like muggle paraplegics went around putting themselves in bathtubs, was it? They had people to help with that kind of thing.

He carefully put his fag down on the side of the bath, and two more next to it so that he could hopefully keep the chain going until he was done washing. Then he kept hold of the tub with one hand and used the other to bend his legs round to face the right way, as gently as he could considering their weight. He could easily break them, moving about like this. Then he got the best hold he could on the enamel tub and pulled himself up. Well, he tried to. He hadn't thought until now how much like doing a pull-up this would be, and he hadn't been able to do any of those even when he'd been young and strong. He reached further up and hooked his elbows over instead, then tried again with a grunt.

Grinding his teeth to prevent any more sound from escaping, he heaved up and levered his torso over the edge, breathing heavily as he balanced there. His arms weren't shaking so much as vibrating uncontrollably. Slowly, he transferred the weight onto his stomach, bent over the side of the bath like a wet towel. It must have put pressure in the wrong place, because he heard a spattering noise and knew it must be piss. Cool. Just... Something he would have to clean up later. Somehow.

He tried to calm down, taking slow breaths as he studied his reflection in the clear water. There were no mirrors in the house so he didn't see himself often. He was bone-thin. Not just his legs, as he had already known, but it showed on his face too. He looked ill.

Duh.

He memorised it for drawing later, everything he could. Right down to the reflection of his reflection in his eyes, and the threads of wavy hair that wound down the side of his nose. Studying all of this helped him regain composure, and his beating heart slowed to an almost normal rhythm.

With a last heroic push, he threw out his left hand to catch the other side of the tub. For a moment he was stable, torso held over the water with support from the edge of the tub, legs stretched out behind him uselessly. Steam rose from the water to join his sweat, rolling from his forehead down the side of his nose. Next, he just had to figure out a way to get his legs in _before_ the rest of him. Maybe if he moved his hips like thi-

"Shit!" He plummeted head-first into the water, legs following behind and forcing his face to scrape along the bottom of the bath. He bonked his head at the end, and the last of his breath escaped him. Fuck, he was going to drown. Harry Potter, hero of the wizarding world, was going to drown in a fucking bathtub. His arms flailed wildly as he took in a lungful of water.

Just in time, he managed to turn around and yank himself up to the surface. On the way up, he caught the side of his eye socket on the hot metal tap. The surprise pushed him momentarily back under water, then he resurfaced coughing.

"Shit!" he gasped, then coughed again as the water up his nose sank unpleasantly to the back of his throat. "Shit, shit, shit, fucking SHIT!" He managed to twist himself into a sitting position at the wrong end of the bath, tap nudging him in the back. Water sloshed in waves over the side onto the tiled floor, one more impossible task for later.

Angry tears prevented his clogged eyes from clearing, and he felt along the edge of the bath for his cigarettes. They were soaked.

When the tears finally broke and rolled down his cheeks, he told himself it was because he'd hurt his eye and not because he was a pathetic excuse for a man who couldn't do anything for himself.

"Shit."

Later, after washing, draining the water, drying himself and falling inelegantly but purposefully out onto the wet floor, after crawling and climbing up the toilet, desperately using whatever he could as leverage... After everything, he sat in his chair in his bedroom, clean and dressed, and wrote a note. It wasn't just the ache in his arms that made the words appear slowly.

_Can't use magic. I need_ help

He crossed out that last bit, scribbling over it hard so it wasn't possible even to guess what words had been written under the giant blob of ink.

_Can't use magic. Bathroom's a nightmare. Don't tell Snape._

There. He wasn't begging for help, he told himself. Just keeping her up to date with current events, how things were coming along. What she did with that information was nothing to do with him. It wasn't because he couldn't do it alone. Not because he wasn't good enough.

oOoOoOoOoOo

Bonus Author's Note: Just a note to say that there are many types of disabilities, and although Harry doesn't have the use of his little guy in this one story it's not representative of every person in a wheelchair ever. I realised that I don't really enjoy writing smut, so my stories don't have any/much of that stuff, and I think it's against rules anyway, but y'all should just be aware that people with disabilities can has sex lives too. That is all.


	5. Chapter 5

Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: meeee

Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times

Word Count: Around 33k all together

Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?

Author notes: I don't have a beta so I apologise for pacing issues or grammar mistakes. This is a story I started like three years ago. The first 10k words are from then, and I've only changed them a little bit. The next 10k words are from about a year ago, and the final 10k are from the last week or two, so there's bound to be continuity errors also. It's not some masterpiece or anything, just a fic I finally finished haha.

**THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER**

He engrossed himself in the sketchbook before dinner, and didn't so much as glance at Snape. He couldn't raise his head, anyway, because his fringe was barely sufficient to hide the livid bruised eye he'd got in the bath. He was feeling utterly miserable. His arms and the bruise throbbed, despite the paracetamol-ibuprofen mix he had taken before leaving his room. He couldn't feel the pad in his pants, but he knew it was probably giving him a real nasty friction rash that he'd have to sort out later. He'd ended up putting not only one in his pants, but two more under his legs and bum just in case. Now that his feet were cold, it seemed like they sucked the heat out of the rest of him too. Even with his new woollen jumper, he was shivering.

To top that off, he'd knocked a stack of sketchbooks off the shelf closest the door. Snape had picked them up, though he didn't taunt Harry by using magic to do it. He'd finally picked up the cigarettes by himself, but hadn't smoked any more of them yet.

He cleared his throat, sore from breathing in water and then about half an hour of chain swearing. "Do you have any matches?" he asked, keeping his head lowered. He was drawing a thin, sickly face – his own.

"You shouldn't smoke." Snape replied from across the room. His voice was loud over the sizzling of whatever he was cooking.

Harry didn't have the energy to gather anger - even Snape was at it, now - but his hand tightened around the pencil. "I know, but do you have any?"

Snape huffed. "Yes, in the laboratory. Accio matches." They landed in Harry's lap, and he quickly lit a fag with shaking fingers, took a drag.

He'd used the smouldering butt to light a second one by the time Snape was done. The food was good, but he wasn't feeling in the mood for it. Holding the shallow bowl warmed his hands up a bit, which helped to steady his shaking. He started a new iteration, concentrating this time on portraying the surface of the water better.

"We should discuss your treatment." Snape said. "I've made the first batch. We could use it tonight or tomorrow morning though I'd recommend evenings, as I expect you will be exhausted afterwards." Even more exhausted than he was now? Great.

"What do I do?" Harry asked, buying time as he thought about how to hide his black eye now that they were talking. There was the foundation that had fallen out of Hermione's bag once. He had it in a drawer somewhere. Was it pale enough though? At least it wasn't unusual for him to sit hunched with his face covered, so he wasn't exactly behaving suspiciously right now.

"For now, only drink a few potions and then go to sleep. Keep note of any ill effects or symptoms."

"That all?"

He heard the chink of china as Snape placed a cup back in its saucer. Harry considered adding some dark blues to his picture, but there was something about the high-contrast black and white image he'd drawn so far that really mirrored his feelings.

"Today you will be fine, but in the next few weeks it will begin to ache as your body fights the curse again. You will have to take a host of potions, bespoke restoratives and nutrients - hopefully we can keep them oral, but I am prepared for intravenous. The side effects might be unpleasant."

"So long as I can still draw, I don't care," Harry murmured, then looked up when Snape was silent. "I can still draw, right? You said I could-"

Both Harry and Snape froze as each looked up from half-eaten omelettes, forks halfway to mouths.

"You've washed your hair." Harry gaped.

"You've – who did that to your face?" Snape almost knocked his chair over as he took giant, purposeful strides around the table. He looked like he was going to touch Harry's face to take a better look, but changed his mind and simply stood over him with a concerned frown.

"You washed your hair," Harry repeated, stupidly. He'd sort of forgotten that it was greasy from grease, and not because that's just what Snape's hair _was_. It was almost silky now, and framed the man's face in fine, loose strands falling past his shoulders. The wizard shook it back irritably.

Snape grabbed Harry's jaw, no longer hesitant, and tilted his face to the side. "I saw you leave today. Who did you see?"

Harry's brain jumbled at the realisation that Severus Snape's skin was touching his skin. No one had touched him properly for a long time. He hadn't let them.

Should he say that someone from the village had punched him? It would save a lot of face, but the lie could easily spiral. No, he'd tell the truth, or part of it, but act as cool as possible about it.

He batted Snape's hand away. "I fell. It happens." Ah, was that too grouchy? Too defensive?

Snape pulled his hand back quickly, straightening up. "I see." His face was a mask.

What, though. What did he see? Whatever it was, he was probably wrong. Oh, it didn't matter, so long as he didn't have the time to dwell on it. "Your hair." Harry stated a third time, by way of distraction.

Snape's eyes flickered to the sketchbook sitting on the table, and back. "Well, if you're going to draw it then it might as well be clean. Don't blame me when I get a strand in your potion and you turn into a flamingo."

"How could a strand of hair turn someone i-"

"You are about to ask a question whose answer you have no hope of possibly comprehending." Snape said as he sat down to finish his food. Harry lit another cigarette, aware that he had smoked more this afternoon than he had all of yesterday.

"So I can't ask?" he said.

"You may ask if you wish, and I may answer. It would be a momentous waste of time."

Harry couldn't argue with that.

For the next hour, they sat in silence. Harry became so engrossed in his drawings that he didn't notice the time go by. He sketched the same haggard face over and over. Water was a difficult subject to learn, and Harry had a few tricks he was yet to find. Maybe he should fill up a bowl and do some studies.

He glanced up as Snape rose, looking at a pocket watch Harry hadn't seen before. He couldn't see from this side of the table whether it was magic or muggle.

Snape took the dishes to the sink without commenting on how little Harry had eaten today. "It's time," he said.

"Do I get to sketch you first, or after?" Harry asked.

Snape hesitated. It was clear he'd prefer neither time, but Harry was sure he'd not go back on his promise. "Before," he said reluctantly. "You will need to rest later."

At last. Even knowing that he was going back to the experimentation of that last year at Hogwarts - to being treated as he didn't want to be, an invalid – excitement coursed through him. The one good thing about a treatment that could last forever was that he would have all the time he could possibly want to study his subject. He wondered how far he could push it, how much he could erode Snape's sensibility over time. There was real potential in the long term.

"Come along, I'll have notes to take later and I would prefer to have time for sleep." Snape said, and Harry followed him through the door into the lab.

He'd not used the room for anything in particular before, just storage for odds and ends from Grimmauld Place. He didn't ask where they'd been moved to. There was a wide enough space for his chair to get from the door to a narrow wooden bed against the opposite wall, but the rest of the room was cramped with workspaces and cauldrons. Boxes and jars of ingredients covered all available space on both the floor and the surfaces, as well as shelves that had been erected since the last time he'd been in here. The windows had been sealed with black cloth to prevent any natural light from entering, so it felt almost like Snape's old dungeons except that the walls were a bright lemon-meringue yellow and there was not a speck of dust to be seen. He propelled himself inside, careful not to knock anything. Although if Snape had left any expensive ingredients where Harry could reach them, then he was basically asking for trouble.

"Do you need assistance getting on the bed?" Snape asked, voice neutral as he deftly removed a small cauldron from its flame, replacing it with a large beetle carapace before crumpling it in his hand and sprinkling that into a second larger cauldron.

Harry studied him for any trace of pity, but the professor was too engrossed in his work. Or that's what he wanted Harry to think, when in reality he was cataloguing every action. The height of the bed frame was only a little more than his chair, so it was one of the few things he could confidently do alone. Well, when he wasn't shaking and tired. "Is this where you…?" he asked, looking about uneasily for another door that might lead to Snape's sleeping quarters.

"Get a move on Potter, I haven't slept in it if my germs worry you so terribly," the man replied, still not looking up from his work.

Harry put the brakes on, then waited until Snape's back was turned before bumping over onto the bed as deftly as he could. He pulled his legs up one at a time, gave a moment to worry over how cold they felt. He tried not to think about it as he pulled the bed covers over them. Snape had probably not intended for him to _get in_ the bed, but he wasn't going to let himself freeze. "Where do you sleep then?"

"I am a vampire," Snape replied deadpan. "I hang from the ceiling." He pointed absently to a corner of the room where a beam from the kitchen partially stuck out from the wall.

Harry covered his mouth to stop a laugh. He hadn't laughed in, what - years? Actual years. It felt strange to start now. "We used to think that, back in school." He said. "When you weren't busy prowling the corridors."

Snape finally finished what he was doing, looked up and smiled. "I was aware."

Harry didn't look away while reaching for his sketchbook, but the man turned around to fetch something anyway. He had to remember that expression, he just had to. The light in the room was on a low dimmer, causing the details of Snape's hair and dark clothing to almost fade into the background, but there had been a moment where the man had tilted his head a little. The light had caught in a ring around his hair and his eyes had glimmered, emphasising his momentary mirth. It had also highlighted his nose most unflatteringly, but that hardly mattered.

He was so glad Snape had washed his hair.

His arm was suddenly filled with energy and he pulled his number two pencil set out of the bag on his wheelchair. It had quickly become his number one set, but he still called it number two. "Sit for me," he demanded. "You said you would."

"I do not need reminding of promises I myself made," Snape replied testily. It was the closest to old Snape Harry had seen him so far. He wondered if it was stress. "I am perfectly capable of holding to oaths."

He could wind the man up, he knew. It was a good time to get him going and see some different expressions. The light in his eye would be absolutely wonderful when he was angry. It would be magnificent. His pencil moved as if to draw that scene, but he stopped it and tried to reign himself in.

"I know, sorry," he said. He had to play the long game, there would be plenty of time to make Snape angry later.

The professor nodded quickly in acknowledgement, then hesitated for so brief a moment Harry almost didn't catch it, before gliding to the bed. "Where… would you like me?"

His voice was low like velvet, and Harry regretted that sounds couldn't be drawn. "Come up closer, just look where I tell you to. Can you make a small yellowish light here?" He pointed to a spot above his own right shoulder, and a murmured spell from Snape obliged. "A bit brighter," Harry commanded.

He carried on fussing, Snape following every instruction exactly, if with trepidation. Moving a fold of sleeve caught in the crook of his arm, tilting his head a fraction to the right - no, back where it was, down a bit and look over there, okay great - making a second smaller light on his other side, and one to illuminate the sketchbook properly.

They spent ten minutes wasting time like this, but it never felt right to Harry. Snape was too stiff after following a thousand commands and trying to hold them all in his mind. The lights felt too perfect and un-genuine. It wasn't natural at all. He wasn't interested in drawing castle-wall picture-perfect official paintings.

Sighing, he dropped the pencil in his hand and leaned his head against the wall behind. Snape didn't move. "Let's- just… let's stop for a second. This isn't working for me."

Snape relaxed, wiggled his fingers and blinked a few times. Had he not been blinking this entire time?

"Can I smoke in here?" Harry asked, though the answer was certainly no. The craving had snuck up on him.

Snape moved on the bed, carefully avoiding Harry's legs as he slid to a position sitting with his back against the wall to mimic Harry, but sideways and as far as possible away. "I'd strongly prefer it if you didn't," he said.

Not a no, then. Harry grinned. "Could you accio them for me? Please. They're in the kitchen." The man did as he was told, and watched Harry light one with a creased frown. It was somehow irritating that he was being so accommodating and non-judgemental. He took a drag. "Do you want one?"

Snape shook his head.

"Talk to me," Harry said. "About anything. I've decided I like my drawings natural. You come out best with natural expressions."

"Like the natural expression of putting a burnt finger in my mouth?"

Harry nodded, determined not to show shame or embarrassment. "Exactly. Tell me about something."

"Potions?"

"No, something interesting. Why do you wear black all the time?"

Snape raised an eyebrow in judgement at Harry's definition of interesting. He settled into a comfortable position and then began talking to the opposite wall. Side profile, nice. Well, not nice. It was possibly the least flattering angle for the man, but great new material for Harry. "I'm sorry to disappoint, but there's no good reason for it. I simply like the colour."

"Why?" Harry prompted, taking up his pencil again. There really was no worse angle for the man's nose than this.

"It suits my hair, I suppose. And my personality. The children can't tell when you've spilled a potion all down your front three seconds before they pile in for a lesson." He scratched the bridge of his nose using a pinched thumb and forefinger. It looked like he was nursing a sinus headache. "I suppose it's also somewhat frightening, an image I cultivate to keep students from misbehaving in class."

"Did you used to wear different colours as a kid?" Now that would be an image to see. Then again, he'd been wearing black in the school memories Harry had seen in the pensieve. "Do you ever not wear black?"

Snape took a few moments to answer. "I cannot recall any specific instances in recent memory, but I do own clothing in shades of green and blue. You must have seen them at some time during your tenure at Hogwarts. At Christmas and the like." He waited for Harry to ask another question, but he was playing the quiet game again to see what would come out of its own volition.

Snape's forehead creased as his brows came together. "Ah, I have a dragonscale vest somewhere. It was a gift. The scales are black but they have a coloured sheen like muggle petroleum in the light. Greens and purples. I would never buy such a gaudy garment myse-"

"I want to see it." Harry said. The surface of petrol was a beautiful pattern, and wasn't something he'd been able to get his eyes on. Not that he'd tried very hard, there were always other things to draw. Combined with the leathery texture of dragon scale, it was something he was desperate to start on now. "Don't need you to wear it," he added when Snape looked disgusted.

Snape hunched his shoulders in a shrug-like movement that screamed discomfort. "I will have a look for it, when I have time. It's not something I carry around on every jaunt or jolly."

Obviously. The man was super tense now, and Harry doubted he'd get anything good out of him. "Do you wanna check on the potions and stuff? I can draw you from here, and maybe in the future we can do the drawing time upstairs in the day."

"Yes." Was all Snape said, as if he had used up all his words for the day. He rose, taking care to avoid Harry's legs again.

Harry flicked through the last few pages of sketches and found them all uninspiring. There was nothing he cared to iterate on, so he turned his gaze back to Snape. He'd gone straight to straining something red through a cream coloured piece of fabric that might have once been a pillow case, as if he had spent his whole time with Harry worrying that it needed doing. He caught the pink liquid dripping down in a wide jug, then poured that into a row of vials already set out on the counter nearby.

Now that Harry was looking properly, he saw that some of the boxes were already half filled with neatly stacked vials and bottles. On the counter nearest the door stood a cluster of uncapped bottles he recognised as Skele-Gro.

He frowned. "Are you making supplies for the hospital wing as well?" That was a full time job in itself, so far as he knew, and Snape was doing it in addition to cooking, cleaning and preparing Harry's treatment?

"Of course," Snape said, as if it was obvious he would be doing so. Who else would do it? He quickly added stoppers to the now gently smoking vials before getting another wooden stand from a shelf and filling that with the same. "I also have a stock of various remedies put aside to treat possible side effects. Pain potions, muscle oils, relaxers and the like, all made with the most inert of ingredients so as not to tamper with your course. I do hope you appreciate the lengths to which I have gone to assist you."

Snape turned to look at him at the last, and he ducked his head to sketch. His stomach was a knot, and he didn't want to talk any more.


	6. Chapter 6

Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: meeee

Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times

Word Count: Around 33k all together

Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?

Author notes: I don't have a beta so I apologise for pacing issues or grammar mistakes. This is a story I started like three years ago. The first 10k words are from then, and I've only changed them a little bit. The next 10k words are from about a year ago, and the final 10k are from the last week or two, so there's bound to be continuity errors also. It's not some masterpiece or anything, just a fic I finally finished haha.

**THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER**

The treatment that night had been two potions drank in quick succession and an examination of his eyes to check against any unwanted reactions, then a ten minute wait before a large goblet of steaming purple liquid that Snape had warned he'd have to down as quickly as he could as it would make him very drowsy.

He woke up the next morning in his own bed, still in the same clothes he had been wearing last night and most definitely had pissed himself in the night. It wasn't the most pleasant smell to wake up to, but at least he couldn't feel it down there. The pads were unpleasantly wet, despite their claims to be able to absorb and gel-ify large quantities of fluid.

Thankfully, he had thought up an alternative to drowning in the bath, in the form of a measuring jug and a flannel. He still needed to sit in the cold bathtub, but he kept the warm water running over his feet between filling up the jug to pour elsewhere. It wasn't so bad, once he was actually successfully in the bathtub.

The bed was another matter. He already had a mattress protector in place under the sheets so the mattress itself was fine was fine, but manually stripping a bed from a wheelchair was a mighty pain in the arse. He was glad for once that he's opted for a day bed, slightly narrower than a single, instead of the gigantic double bed he'd originally planned. He took the dirty sheets and hid them behind some wood pallets in the garage, then replaced them with equal pains. He only had two more clean sheets in the linen cupboard.

When he finally made it to the kitchen, Snape was waiting for him although he tried to look for all the world as if he had only just arrived himself. It was an hour later than Harry usually turned up for breakfast.

"Did you sleep well?" Snape asked.

Harry wheeled himself to the table, where Snape must have placed his sketchbook after his treatment. He opened to the latest page and remembered the disappointing sketches of the night before. He tried to remember what he could of the moment in which Snape had half-smiled, and began a rough sketch.

"Harry? Did you sleep well?"

Oh, right. Snape had been talking to him. "Yeah, fine. No side effects or pain," he replied. The eyes had been something like this… Or had they been half closed? His memory was fuzzy. He looked up to get a reference for the shape of Snape's eyes, but he had just turned away. His clean hair swished over a shoulder.

There was a nice texture difference between the black robe shirt and his hair, though the colour was near identical.

"No memory loss, headache, loss of vision or shaking?" Snape listed.

Should he tell the man about his bed wetting? A bit of leakage was only to be expected though, hardly relevant. And the shaking was because he was cold and tired, a condition that predated the potions. "I'm a bit foggy on the details from last night, nothing else. Are you expecting me to lose my vision?" That was a terrifying thought.

Snape placed a plate in front of him on the table. "I'm not expecting anything. This is uncharted territory, therefore the effects could manifest in any number of ways and it would be unwise to assume that we have all the information we need. Do you remember what we talked about?"

Harry looked at the plate, but the thought of eating even toast made him queasy. He nibbled a corner just because Snape was watching. "Uh, black clothes. You're going to show me a dragon scale vest, and you're making potions for the Hogwarts infirmary."

"Good, that's fine. And what do you remember after the purple potion?"

Harry shook his head. "Nothing until I woke up this morning. Did you carry me to my room?" He wanted to thank the man for not undressing him, although care-wise it wasn't a particularly good choice.

"I pushed you in your chair. You kept asking for your cigarettes, and for something called a 'grabby stick', but I was afraid you'd leave one lit and burn the house down."

Speaking of which, he found and lit one now.

It was harder talking to Snape now that the treatment had begun. It felt like everything he said would be studied, that _he_ was being studied for weakness. For ways he was struggling, when he wasn't good enough or strong enough on his own. Even knowing how silly and infantile it was didn't prevent him from feeling it, or from avoiding the awkwardness of trying to hold a conversation. He went back to his drawings, forced himself to draw something other than Snape. Window light reflected on his untouched fork.

Snape didn't take his plate away when he stood, probably hoping that Harry would eat something more given time. "I will be in the laboratory if you need anything," he said. A long minute stretched between them as Harry continued to draw the fork, four or five quick sketches alongside one another, each capturing the light differently. He didn't look up until the door clicked softly behind the professor. Had he been waiting to see if Harry would follow him?

He had intended to get moving as soon as Snape was gone, but he decided just to finish this one page first. One page turned into several more, and he forgot about everything outside of the soft, thick paper until he suddenly started to feel nauseous. He snapped the sketchbook closed and reached quickly for a large bowl he kept on the window sill to his left. It had been a fruit bowl at one point, but he didn't eat enough fruit to merit keeping it as one and it was far more interesting as a vessel for catching dawn sunlight anyway.

He was only a little bit sick, two short splashes into the bowl and the nausea faded. He studied the liquid, checking for signs it was the bad kind. That was something he'd learned from the last time he'd been under Snape's treatment. If he went to the man every single time he was sick, they'd never be apart.

He went through the checklist. Was it the same colour as the last potion he'd drank? No. Did it contain any bits he was sure he hadn't eaten? No. Was it coming out in copious, uncontrollable amounts? No. Was it accompanied by stomach cramps, or an acidic or burning feeling? No. It was just ordinary sick that left nothing behind except an ordinary bad taste, and the bad feeling that accompanied it had disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. He put the bowl on the table next to his uneaten toast and decided to get going. He'd wash up in a bit.

Back in his bedroom, he found his muggle mobile phone in a drawer and powered it up. It made an obnoxiously loud sound and the words "Hello Harry" scrolled across the screen. He hated how it knew his name. When it turned on, he had to wait a minute for the torrent of new message pings to quiet. Hermione and Dudley both assumed that he kept it on at all times of night and day, and texted him easily a hundred times a month between them despite the fact that he never replied.

He ignored the existing messages and texted Hermione, asking if she could come over this afternoon. He had not sent the note of the night before, for two reasons. The first was that he'd planned to send it last thing, and had been forced unexpectedly to sleep instead. And the second was that he didn't know who might be able to intercept or see Hermione's messages if they went to her at the Ministry. Even if he didn't read the papers, he wanted to keep as much information about himself out of them as possible. He lit a fag while waiting for a reply. Even after so many years in and out of the wizarding world, muggle phones seemed more like magic than owls.

A few minutes later, her reply pinged through. Sort_ it out between you, I don't have time to play diplomat between two full-grown adults._

He huffed. Should he be annoyed that she automatically assumed that he and Snape were at each other's throats right off the bat? He could hardly blame her, based on past experience, but still...

_It's not anything like that,_ he typed. _I need to order some stuff off Amazon._

Amazon was like a delivery service by owl, except for muggle items, delivered by muggles in vans. The next day delivery was nice though, and he'd use it more often if he could work out all this muggle technology stuff that Hermione took in her stride. Even though they both came from muggle backgrounds, she'd had access to fancy gadgets growing up that Harry would never have been bought. The internet was something he'd had no experience of until moving to his muggle flat after fleeing Hogwarts, and even then it had been supervised times in the local library with an assistance volunteer doing everything for him so he could access his Government Gateway Account.

_Okay. I can do 3, but I'll be working overtime later so you better not be lying._

He sent a quick thanks and turned the phone back off so that he wouldn't have to find the charger any time soon. He hadn't seen it in at least six months, so Merlin knew where it might be. Conserving the battery for as long as possible was his only option.

He went back and emptied the sick bowl and his toast into the bin, then put the dishes in the sink. The countertop here was awkwardly high, something he'd never noticed when he could spell the dishes to do themselves. As it was, it wasn't worth spending one of his few daily spells on this, so he left them in the sink and went back to drawing for another while. He'd already spent one of his three spells on levitating himself onto the toilet this morning, so he was holding on to the other two like precious gems.

He sketched his own hand drawing in the sketchbook, inside of which he drew the same image of hand and sketchbook getting smaller and smaller like some weird mirror illusion. When he was done, he decided it would look better if he rotated each iteration of the sketchbook so that his hand made a spiral through the page. He made it a double page spread.

At two o'clock, he realised that Snape still hadn't returned to make lunch. Probably engrossed in his work. He felt guilty enough about the man's workload to make him a ham sandwich. It would also help him think that Harry had eaten. He'd probably assume the lack of appetite was a side-effect of the treatment, whereas in reality Harry had just gotten out of the habit of eating often while living in his muggle flat. He'd never really got an appetite back after that, no matter how much Molly had tried in that first year to force one into him.

He put the sandwich on a plate and took it into the lab without knocking. Snape didn't notice him enter, busy as he was crushing kernels with one hand while stirring a cauldron with the other, so he put the plate somewhere obvious and left. He didn't want to get drawn into conversation, with Hermione arriving soon.

He tidied up a bit and went to the bathroom to check the pad in his underpants. It was dry, but he didn't know how often they were supposed to be changed. It was probably fine. There was no sign of a rash or anything, so he gave his legs a rub down with a warm towel from the heated rack on the wall and headed back. Maybe he should get some thermal leggings or something.

At five to three, he gave the kitchen surfaces the best wipe down he could, brushing bread crumbs onto the floor where he could do nothing about them like an idiot. Hermione floo'd in through the old hearth, striding out with the same ease she did everything else. Since starting at the Ministry, she'd learned the trick to using the network without getting disorientated or covered in ash.

She smiled brightly at Harry, something which he always found irritating. There wasn't anything so great that she should need to grin that widely every time she came into the house, like some demented doll. Without so much as a by-your-leave, she banished the bread crumbs from the floor and started the tea train. "How're you doing? Getting along okay?"

She reminded him of a social worker sometimes, with her forced gaiety and repetitive questions. He forced down a snappy reply, reminding himself that she was only doing her best, and he should really be grateful that she was still willing to hang around with him after the things he'd said to her in the past. He was grateful that she didn't mention his black eye, anyway. He'd half expected her to assume he and Snape had gotten into a fist fight, but then it wasn't the first time he'd slipped and injured himself. "Yeah, fine. No side-effects so far."

They followed the tea train to the dining table, where Hermione moved a chair beside him and took out her laptop. It fired up slower than his phone had, probably because it was bigger. He didn't know how this stuff worked. "You two getting along?" she asked again.

He shrugged. "Yeah. Why wouldn't we?"

She nudged him with her elbow and grinned as if he'd made a joke. "What do you need? Other than some new shampoo."

He frowned at her and ran a hand through his hair. Oh shit, he'd forgotten to wash it. So much for his new improved bathing method. "Uh yeah, I ran out yesterday," he lied. "I need some socks too, warm ones. A blanket for my legs, I thought I had one but I can't find it. Sorry, I should have made a list. Some thermal leggings or something would be good."

"Hang on a sec, Harry. I can only do one thing at a time. Let me get a text editor up so we can make a list now, and if you're okay with it, I can order them when I get home later. Unless you have particular brands in mind?" She already knew he would have left any brand choices to her, since she had a knack for researching the best options on - ah, what were they called? Review forums. Places where people on the internet got together to complain about stuff they bought.

He nodded, watching her type out the items he had already listed before going on. "I can't use any charms at the moment so I was wondering if there's some kind of caddy I can attach to the arm of my chair or something like that. Big enough to put my sketchbook and some other bits in, but not as bulky as my bag." He didn't mention the cigarettes, one of the few things that still drove her into a rant.

She frowned. "No charms at all?" Unlike Snape, she knew just how much Harry relied on spells for day to day tasks and self-care. She glanced again at his unclean hair, and gave him a pitying look she probably thought was _understanding_. "Do you need me to come over in the mornings to help? I can be discrete." She looked pointedly at the lab door, as if he wouldn't know what she was talking about otherwise.

He shook his head and then rubbed his left elbow as if it ached, just to do something with his hands and have an excuse to cross his arms. He'd have to ask her about the… other things. It grated to need help or advice, but it was better that she knew than Snape. "Actually, uh. There's some things I need. But it's…"

"Embarrassing?" She guessed, putting an unwanted hand on his knee in a gesture she probably thought was comforting. "Don't worry, Harry. I'm not going to think any less of you. I already think you're so brave and so strong."

Ugh, there they were. Brave and strong, or BS as he liked to call them, hah! Like he was some kind of saint just for being alive - oh look at how hard he's trying, battling adversity like a right little champion, isn't that _such an inspiration to us all_. He was almost sick again from thinking it.

She took his discomfort the wrong way, and gave his leg an encouraging squeeze. "I need something to put on the bed," he said quickly, before he could talk himself out of it, or into throwing Hermione's hand all the way back to the Ministry of Magic headquarters. "A washable topper. For when I, uh… can't control… it." He motioned vaguely, but she nodded understanding and added Waterproof Sheet Topper to the list.

"Do you need incontinence pads as well?" She asked. Oof, she could at least have chosen her words carefully. He shook his head, though the pads he'd bought were almost definitely not up for the job. There were only so many hits his pride could take in one day. "Okay, anything else?" She clearly didn't believe him and was adding the pads to the list mentally.

"I don't really know, anything you think might be useful. You've researched this more than I have. I need... Something. I don't know, to help in the - with the - _bathroom situation._" He whispered the last two words, even though he knew Snape couldn't hear them through the thick door unless he was intentionally spying. Hermione nodded, and knew enough of Harry not to make any more of a conversation out of it. She could have gone through options with him, trying to get him to choose one or think about the pros and cons of each solution, but they both knew from experience that he didn't have a big enough pool of dignity to take that much draining. "And one of those grabby sticks," he added, just in case she changed her mind. He'd seen Uncle Vernon use one once, showing off how it could be used to take the tv remote from the table without getting out of his chair. There hadn't been much need of it though, as Aunt Petunia tended to keep everything he might need in easy reach. Dudders had taken it outside to play and left it there.

"Any groceries?" Hermione continued.

"I get a weekly bundle delivered from the co-op," he told her. He hadn't needed to increase the amount since Snape's arrival, since he'd been throwing out more than he ate every week before anyway. "Sorry, I guess it wasn't worth a trip out here. I should have thought about it more first."

"It's fine. You have no idea how happy I am that you asked." She tried to catch his eye, but he stared at his lap. She took one of his hands to force him into sharing the moment with her. "You can always ask me. Whatever you need. I want you to know that, Harry. I know you sometimes feel like you have to do everything on your own, but you're _not_ alone."

He gritted his teeth. This was more of that BS sentiment. Trying to reach him through some fictional, superficial understanding of his living experience and feelings. He waited for her to let go of his hand, but she didn't. She evidently expected a reply. "Thanks," he said. For a moment, he thought it wouldn't be enough and she'd want him to share some deep emotions or be stuck in this situation forever. Thankfully, she gave him one last squeeze and then let go.

She packed up in a flurry, spewed out a few more nuggets of positivity and then gave him a hug, the awkwardness of which she ignored completely. She took his Gringotts key off the mantel, though he strongly believed that she undercharged him every time - despite the fact that he had more money than he could use, and she never had quite enough. It was a pity thing, and he despised it - she felt she owed him something for the times she'd "let him down", no matter how many times he explained that he was immensely grateful for the periods when she had gotten so angry and frustrated that she'd left him alone to suffer in peace.

When she was gone, a mere thirty minutes after arriving, he decided to have a quick nap. He'd used a lot of energy today, though he was loath to admit he was tired.


	7. Chapter 7

Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: meeee

Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times

Word Count: Around 33k all together

Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?

Author notes: Thanks again for your support, reviews, follows and favs. Your comments are really helping me realise what's wrong with upcoming chapters so I can fix them before publishing them haha. 3 We're now half way through the journey. :3 Also this is a slightly shorter chapter, and then tomorrow's is very long T_T I thought I'd split it up kind of evenly, but apparently not xD (and it's my birthday today, yay) Also warning for extremely brief reference to the horrific fic that was `Severus Snape, Professor and Lover` haha

**THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER**

A loud rap on his door pulled him from a weird and vaguely horrifying dream about Snape and the Teletubbies. He blinked groggily and managed a grunt. "Uh-huh?"

"Dinner is prepared, if you'd care to join me." Snape said through the door. Harry was surprised he hadn't simply barged in - privacy was one of those things people forgot he was entitled to.

"Yeah. I'll just be a second," he replied, trying to hide the drowsiness in his voice. He'd not planned on letting Snape know that he took afternoon naps like some old man. He got up hurriedly, noticed that his joints were aching. The ones he could feel, anyway. He sprayed some lynx, coughing at the strong chemical smell, and found a dark green Thinsulate beanie hat to cover his greasy hair.

Snape was dishing up when he rolled into the kitchen, and the air smelled like herbs and garlic. Except around him, where it smelled like a spillage in a chemical plant. He resolved never to use the lynx again, and to send Hermione a note about getting a less assaulting alternative. He couldn't be bothered to get the phone back out, but a floo note to her office about this would be fine. It was more likely to be intercepted than a text message, but no one was going to run to Witch Weekly with an expose on the words "Something better than lynx". They'd assume he was talking about the animal, but Hermione would know what he meant.

"No sketchbook this evening?" Snape asked, carrying two steaming bowls to the table.

It was stashed upright between his hip and the arm of his chair, where it usually was when he took it from room to room, though Snape was right to be surprised that Harry hadn't taken it out first thing. He'd not drawn anything since before Hermione arrived, three hours ago. Was that a record?

He took it out, flipping to a clean spread. "Can I draw you now?" he asked.

"While I'm eating?" Snape shook his head and pointed to Harry's bowl with his spoon. "If you finish that first."

Harry eyed the bowl. It was risotto, with small chunks of courgette and a swirl of white cream, topped with a pinch of a green herb he didn't bother trying to identify. It looked like something that'd get served in a restaurant. A nice restaurant at that. Regardless, he doubted he could eat the whole bowl.

He gave it a shot, but only got halfway through before getting distracted by how Snape's clean hair clung to his cheek as if statically charged. The contrast between black strands and sun-deprived skin gave his fingers the itch, and he decided to draw just one quick sketch while it was in front of him. He'd finish the food after... Naturally, he drew a few iterations, then spread the image to include Snape's left eye and forgot the risotto. Snape's eyes had a lot of veins in them, and heavy bags underneath.

There didn't seem to be any part of the man that was handsome or aesthetically appealing, so Harry couldn't understand why he enjoyed drawing the man so much. He wasn't beautiful, not by any means - but he was _interesting_. He'd drawn the eye twice before realising that it was looking right at him. His hand slowed. Had Snape said something? People usually stared when they were waiting for him to answer them. He should probably just apologise for whatever it was, and was about to open his mouth to do so when Snape shook his head softly and leaned back with half an eye roll.

Oh, right. The risotto.

He was being indulgent, letting Harry draw him even though he'd not followed the one condition for doing so. It was totally unlike the Snape he remembered that it would usually irritate him, but the light was so good in here that he sucked it up and started shading again. No one had told him to stop, after all.

Snape took out his own notebook after a while. Harry could tell that he was writing, not drawing, from the way his pen moved. He was using a muggle biro instead of a quill, which was fascinating in itself. Notes on Harry's health, he guessed. This was confirmed when Snape looked up to ask how he was feeling.

"Not too bad. I was sick around lunchtime. Normal colour and texture, maybe just a palm's worth of uh, vomit. No headaches. My elbows and wrists are aching a bit right now though." There was something different about the way light scattered over Snape's cheek today. "Have you moisturised?" he added, flicking back half a book to compare the Snape of yesterday with the man in front of him.

Snape rubbed his jaw, as if he could rub off whatever cream he had used, and scowled. He'd evidently not expected Harry to notice. Catching himself, he dropped his hand to the notebook. "When did the aching start?"

Harry didn't manage to catch a likeness of the professor's insecurity before it was gone. He'd have to refine it later. "When you knocked on my door this evening," he replied absently. "It's just mild, I only told you 'cause you asked."

"Yes, heaven forbid you volunteer important information related to your treatment all on your own…" Snape grumbled. Before Harry could think of his own sarcastic retort, the man stood and reached out a hand. "May I?"

He held the position very patiently after Harry murmured "Hang on, don't move a second..." and started drawing said hand. He finished outlining the nails on Snape's fingers before putting the pencil down in the crease between pages, and proffered his own arm. The professor took it and rolled up the sleeve past his elbow to inspect the joint. "Flex," he ordered, and Harry straightened his arm as Snape pushed against him lightly. He then moved his attention to the wrist, gently bending it this way or that. Finally, he checked the fingers.

Harry struggled to keep his heart from pounding. It was one thing Hermione giving his hand a squeeze, but something else entirely to have this much care and attention from Severus Snape. As if sensing his anxiety, the man let him go.

He rolled down his sleeve as far as it would go, to get rid of the feeling that Snape's hand was still there. Snape sat again, jotted a few things in his notebook. "That will likely get worse over time. There may not be an ointment I can use without affecting the treatment, but if it becomes difficult to draw then I will mix something up for your right hand at the very least."

Without effort, he had cut straight to the only thing that worried Harry. Not that he'd let the man know, of course. "It'll be fine," he said, letting his mind get distracted by the image that had been their joined hands. They were about the same size, reminding Harry how much older he was now than when they had last tried being in each other's company for an extended period of time. It had started out okay that time too, until Harry had come to realise that the treatment was never going to work and they were just keeping it up as a guise to keep him under supervision. At least, that's what he had always suspected.

He frowned and concentrated harder on drawing their fingers. His were shorter and thinner and his nails were square, while Snape's fingers were longer but still slender. He had knobbly joints that only detracted slightly from their elegance, and his nails were almond shaped with neat cuticles. There was a sharpness to them that belied the tender and careful manner in which they were used.

He drew for over the prescribed hour, he knew, but Snape made no comment about it. He seemed satisfied to drink tea and watch the darkening garden, only disturbing Harry's peace every now and then to remind him to drink some water. Soon, it would be warm enough to sit outside and Harry could draw the shadows of tree leaves playing patterns across Snape's face. Then again, sunlight would ruin the man's moon-pale complexion.

When they were about to head into the lab for the day's potions, a loud rapping on the window announced the arrival of a parcel for Harry. Without having to look, he knew it had to be Hermione's owl, Earhart. The house was unplottable, so she was the only owl in all of Britain who could find it. He offered her a piece of courgette left over from his risotto in lieu of an owl treat, since he usually had no reason to keep any. She refused indignantly with a hoot. "Suit yourself," he muttered, and picked up the parcel she was standing on. An outraged squawk and some jumping up and down resulted in Snape fetching her a piece of ham from the fridge though. He was turning out to be a right old softie.

Harry figured it must have been something from his list, so he waited until Snape had taken the dishes to the sink and had his back turned, before opening it.

As soon as the lid was off, a smart man's voice boomed out in a posh RP accent like some television announcer from the 60s. "Good evening, and thank you for choosing ElfDirect's HELPING HANDS. This new and innovative product will cater to all your needs. Brought to you in conjunction with the Elfish Welfare Committee, HELPING HANDS delivers a cruelty-free alternative to-"

Harry snapped the cardboard lid shut on the thing, eyes wide. Snape hadn't turned or paused in the dishwashing, but the chance of him not having heard was exactly zero. The voice continued its self-advertisement, muffled, through the lid. "-as you get older, no need to worry about reluctant relatives or careless elves dropping you on the toilet-" Harry slowly leaned forward so that is torso covered the lid of the box, head resting on his crossed arms. He breathed in... out... The voice continued for another minute, going through the steps for activating the magical HELPING HANDS, as well as commands for specific tasks including but not limited to hovering over afore-mentioned toilet to take a dump, washing and even medical massage exercises. It went into quite some detail around various bathroom tasks it could help him perform, and he rocked back and forth as he waited for the ordeal to end.

After it was done, with one last reminder that all he need do was say "Help me, helping hands", he sat completely still for a time. Snape carried on puttering about with dishes in the sink, though he couldn't possibly still be washing the single pan and two bowls they'd used.

The professor spoke after a long minute's silence. "You could have asked me for any-"

Harry cut him off with a groan. "I am not talking about this with you," he said.

"I'm here to help, not to judge." Snape argued, footsteps revealing that he was moving closer.

Harry's arms tightened around the box, and he repeated: "I am _not_ talking about this with you."

"There's nothing to be ashamed about," Snape started again, now standing right next to Harry, his voice horribly gentle. "I would not-"

"_No_."

Harry expected Snape to push the issue further, but he heard the swish of fabric and the lab door being opened. "You may take a moment's privacy if you require it, while I prepare your potions for the day. Do not be later than another seven minutes, or I will have to begin again - and neither of us will get to sleep until four in the morning."

He doubted he was going to sleep tonight, even if he survived the embarrassment and shame that would inevitably flood in on him when he eventually found the courage to raise his head.


	8. Chapter 8

Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: meeee

Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times

Word Count: Around 33k all together

Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?

Author notes: Long chapter ahead! 3

**THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER**

"I will need to take some samples today," Snape said a week later, as they were sitting in their usual positions to either side of the small table. They had fallen into a routine, and the blood samples would be the first new part of the treatment introduced in that time. "Feel free to make any number of references to my vampiric nature, if you wish."

"One minute," Harry murmured. He was in the middle of shaping out a third and final version of his hypothetical simulation of what Snape would look like laughing. It was pretty disturbing, but then again he'd drawn roadkill without hesitation so it didn't worry him as much as it should have. At least it didn't until Snape rose and walked around the table to watch over his shoulder.

"You think of the strangest of things," he stated, without confirming nor denying the likeness. Harry knew he was referring to the finger-in-mouth incident, and of course it was strange when combined with this page, but he'd filled a book between the two with perfectly normal pictures. He closed the sketchbook and shoved it down the side of his hip, pushing the pencil behind his ear for later.

The lab was even more cluttered than it had been the week before, although some of the boxes had been sent off to Madam Pomfrey already. There was a new setup near the darkened window, all alchemic glass tubes and vials on stands connected together, with coloured liquids or smoke inside. If Snape hadn't told him, he'd have known from this that today would be a blood test day.

"Where do you want me, Dracula?" he asked, since Snape had requested vampire references.

Snape took out a small patterned leather case that looked absolutely ancient. It was dark leather with a clasp of delicate bronze, as Harry remembered it from years before, but the inside was a surprise. Instead of the terrifying glass and bronze syringe he had used in the past, there was a modern muggle needle and syringe kit, every part individually wrapped in sterile plastic wrap. A big step from the last time they'd done this procedure. Harry frowned in confusion. "The chair is fine," Snape replied, as if there was nothing at all unordinary about him donning a pair of blue gloves and putting together a medical syringe like a muggle phlebotomist. When he approached, Harry hesitantly proffered his left arm for sacrifice.

Snape examined the veins, muttering under his breath words Harry couldn't catch as he pressed fingers here or there along Harry's arm and wrist. He then took a thin muggle sachet from the case and tore it open. The alcohol wipe reminded Harry of muggle hospitals, and his confusion grew as Snape used it to clean the spot he'd evidently decided on. Harry wanted to watch the needle go in, but he couldn't do it in the end so he stared at Snape's concentrating face instead. His brows were furrowed, casting shadow on his eyes. He looked like a real vampire with his too-pale skin shadowed like that. Definitely old school Dracula, not the modern muggle teenagers with flashy smiles and smooth skin. Eccentric and unique.

The needle itself barely stung, but there was an unpleasant ache as the blood was drawn out. He felt sick again, and concentrated on breathing as he stared at Snape's ear. The hair had fallen in just such a way that he could see the soft outside curve of it. He'd imagined they might be pointy or overly large, although now he could see that wouldn't make sense or he'd never manage to keep them covered so well. He had possibly the smallest ears for his head size possible. It was another mind-altering glimpse into the humanity of his old potions teacher. He had ears, and Harry had seen them with his own actual eyeballs.

The hair shifted, obscuring his view as Snape withdrew the syringe and gave him a worried glance. "Are you alright?"

Harry felt light headed and detached, like the room was a couple of feet further away than it should be. He forced his thoughts to clarity. "I'm okay. Where did you get the muggle stuff?"

"I completed a paramedic training course over the Christmas holidays," Snape said, as if this was something completely normal for a wizard and potions master to do with his spare time. "And I bought the syringes legitimately through a St John's supplier. Drink this. Restorative."

He did as he was told, if only to cover his surprise. It was like finding out that your dog could fly and talk. It wasn't a bad thing necessarily, but it took some adjusting to. As the restorative potion took hold, his brain felt less foggy but it was no easier to comprehend Snape. What else had he done in preparation for his time here? How long had he and the others been planning it? "Are you going to give me the drowsy potion again?" he asked instead, because there was no way of articulating his muddled feelings.

"Same as usual, but I should know tonight how the treatment is going so far, and depending on the results I may alter the course from tomorrow onwards." Snape used a small pipette to transfer a few drops of blood each into three glass bottles, and upended the rest into a funnel at the top of the glass contraption. The first three mixtures reacted quickly, one changing from red to a deep brown, the second swirling with what looked from here to be glitter, and the third smoking gently. Snape opened a drawer and pulled out a yellow party balloon, which he attached to the mouth of that bottle. It began to slowly fill, then abruptly stuck straight up but didn't expand larger than could fit in an adult's palm.

Harry decided that he'd already been given the purple potion and was currently dreaming. It was the only explanation. "Green suits you," Snape said as he stoppered the glittery bottle and gave it a shake, referring to both Harry's jumper and the new blanket on his lap. "Though I may be biased." He didn't seem bothered by the silence that followed. He held the bottle to the light and the glitter dissolved into a dull glowing substance that stuck to the bottom of the glass. He put that down and concentrated on the third potion, twisting the neck of the balloon so that none of the gas would escape when he pulled it off the bottle. He tied it expertly, as if he had tied a million party balloons before and it was a totally and utterly normal thing to be doing in a potions laboratory.

Harry watched, entranced as the man produced a stick with a plastic clothes peg duct taped to the end. It was a dream. A really weird dream. One he hoped to forget come morning. Dream-Snape then lit a candle and gave a warning before holding the balloon above it on the stick. It exploded loudly in a small ball of flame, at which the professor frowned consideringly, with a brief glance in Harry's direction. Whatever the result, it didn't seem to be what he'd been hoping for.

"Apologies, I should let you get some rest. Your presence is no longer required," Snape told him. He took one of the ladles hanging from a rail along the wall and dished a scoop each from two cauldrons into goblets, evidently unconcerned with cross contamination. He handed them both to Harry, who gulped them down one after the other while Snape poured the entire contents of a third tiny cauldron into another goblet and put that aside.

They'd decided that it was better for Harry to take the potion _after_ getting ready for bed, though he'd had to forego brushing his teeth a few times in order to keep the wait time between potions to the prescribed ten minutes.

His left arm felt weaker than usual, causing the chair to turn unevenly even on the short journey through the house. Snape made no comment, but he was probably filing it for later. Harry pushed the arm harder, trying not to show his frustration. Not much of a healing job, was it, if it made him _worse_ than he'd been before. When they reached his room, Snape closed the door between them before he could even ask, a considerate gesture that joined everything else to make him even more irritated. He didn't even get the satisfaction of telling the man he was doing a poor job.

In fact, he'd been calm and considerate every moment since arriving. He'd been understanding and had never overstepped the mark, even though Harry hadn't told him where the mark even was. He wasn't condescendingly friendly like Hermione, or impatient and accusing like the old Snape. He was more than just human - he was barely Snape at all. He'd become - what, a better person?

Harry couldn't understand why Snape being good upset him so much, or so suddenly, but he threw his clothes into the wash basket with as much force as he could muster and twisted his foot trying to shove it through a trouser leg.

"Let me know when you're ready," Snape said neutrally through the door, respecting his boundaries and all that. Harry threw a shoe, which hit the wood with a satisfying bang but caused no other reaction.

Realising he was being stupid and childish, he threw back the covers and got into bed before he could do anything else. What was the point of trying to antagonise the man? The past ten days had been some of the calmest he'd ever spent with another human, especially since the war. He should be grateful and relieved, instead of… of jealous. That's what it was, wasn't it? He was jealous of Snape, because he had managed to move on and grow and recover from the scars two wars had left on him, while Harry couldn't even get over his own temper tantrums.

He wanted to curl up into a ball, but he had to be sitting up to drink the potion that Snape had - oh so considerately - made for him. "I'm done," he called, sounding more tired than angry now. At least the potion would send him off to sleep so he wouldn't spend the whole night obsessing over how much of a better person Severus Snape was than him.

The man in question stepped inside like a doe in an unfamiliar forest, carefully testing the air. He left the goblet on the bedside table and bid Harry goodnight without waiting around to watch him drink the concoction. He was demonstrating that he trusted Harry to do what was required, and that he acknowledged it was ultimately Harry's choice whether he drank it or not. That knowledge was harder to swallow than the potion itself, but at least he had no time to think on it.

Rationally, Harry knew that his sudden mood swing was a natural reaction to the blood loss and potions he had taken, but knowing something logically did not prevent him from feeling the way he did. He fell asleep in a horrible mood, and woke up feeling even worse.

The next morning passed much as the ones before had. Hiding sheets in the garage and having a wash with the aid of the Helping Hands, which had turned out to be well suited to his needs so long as he could get over the feeling that he was being held up by a real person's hands.

Snape wasn't in the kitchen at breakfast, so Harry made himself a slice of toast and left most of it on the plate. His arms still ached, and the left one felt even weaker than last night. It made moving about the house a chore, so it was a good thing he had nowhere else to be.

He went to his usual place at the window and began by looking over yesterday's drawings. He studied each image of Snape, how the man stood or sat, how his hair fell over his shoulders and the expressions he'd captured. Annoyance, confusion, calmness and worry each, but there wasn't an angry face among them.

It seemed improbable that he'd changed so much since Hogwarts. More likely that he was hiding his anger. He'd been a double spy for years, after all. He could pretend the sky was green and birds went woof, if he tried.

He picked up where he'd left off on the pretend laughing Snape. Why was he being so kind? He'd always hated Harry, right from the start. Was it pity? The thought of Snape being nice through pity was about as foreign as the idea of him using a party balloon in potions experiments. He just couldn't puzzle out the man's motives.

Before he knew it, it was noon and Snape still hadn't shown his face. He was probably just busy, but concern gnawed at Harry. There were no dirty dishes or crumbs to show he'd been up, and the tea set sat inert in its cupboard.

He went to the door, looked at it hesitantly. He should knock, just to check in. Or make a sandwich and just take it inside like he'd already done a few times before. But there were no sounds from inside, no distant bubbling or clinking of a stirring rod, no chopping or crushing. Just eerie silence.

He returned to the table and tried sketching again. It was probably nothing. Who was he to question if Snape had eaten, or if he wasn't busily making Harry's potions every second of every day? Maybe he was having a quiet read in bed, or he'd been up all night running tests and had only gotten to sleep an hour ago. It would be inconsiderate to disturb him.

Regardless of what he kept telling himself, he was back at the door only minutes later. He took a breath and knocked, three loud raps. Silence echoed for a long moment, then there was the tinkling of broken glass - being moved or swept aside? The door swung open about half a foot, not far enough for him to see inside. Snape's face appeared in the gap.

He looked haggard, totally worn out. "Yes?" he said, not quite snapping.

"I just, uh… wanted to check if you…" What could he say? Checking that Snape was alright? He clearly wasn't. "If you wanted some lunch. I could bring you down a sandwich or something, if you haven't eaten already."

Snape looked surprised, eyes flicking over Harry's head to the bright room behind. He clearly hadn't realised it was morning yet, never mind past midday. "I shall be through momentarily," he said.

A small movement of light caught Harry's eye and he saw a droplet of dark shiny liquid dripping down from Snape's hand where it held the door. "That's- you're bleeding." He said.

Snape looked down, as shocked as Harry to notice the red stain on the door. He withdrew his hand with a frown. "It's nothing, I must have cut it on broken glass. There was an - ah, unexpected reaction last night, nothing you ought to worry over."

Harry went to push the door open, but Snape held it fast in an almost panicked motion. What on Earth..? "I'll be out after I've finished cleaning up, I wouldn't want you getting injured."

Harry was about to insist that he didn't want Snape getting injured either, but the doorbell cut him off. Great timing, Amazon. He'd been waiting for this so-called next day delivery all week, and they decided to turn up _now_. He'd have to go sort that quickly, or by the time he got there he'd find a slip of paper instead of his packages, and he'd have to ask Hermione for even more help.

He looked back to tell Snape as such, but found the door already shut. He sighed, then rolled to the front door as fast as he could.

The delivery bloke instantly decided that the best place for the lump of packages he had in his arms was Harry's lap, as if he was some kind of moving shelf. He tried to protest, almost knocking them over, but the man was halfway down the path before he could turn his chair enough to see around the pile of packages in front of his face. He hadn't even asked for a signature. Damn it, what was wrong with everyone today?!

He managed to slam the door shut, sending the boxes flying at the same time. They smiled up at him with that creepy logo, and he sneered back at them.

He'd only just got them all stacked on the table when Snape reappeared, hand neatly bandaged. Harry was in bad enough a mood to ignore the man, and it seemed like the feeling was mutual.

So much for the new improved Snape and his calming company. Harry began opening boxes, carelessly throwing cardboard onto the floor around him even though he knew it would be a pain in the arse later. It looked like everything but the blanket was here, which had arrived the day before yesterday.

There was a caddy for his chair, which included just the right size of pocket for his cigarettes and a box of matches. He lit one now and let it hang from his lips as he opened another box. It was some weird frilly thing made of plastic netting. The label said "bath loofah" and had little bubbles on it. Some kind of wash sponge, then. There were a few other bits and bobs, some of which he could guess the function of, some not. He used the grabbing stick to move all the cardboard scraps into a neat pile.

The lynx replacement came in a thin aerosol can with a matte pinkish silver finish. It said it was a musk, which didn't sound very appealing but then his own choice hadn't ended up too great either.

He waited until Snape was gone, with barely a word exchanged between them, before doing a quick spray and sniff. True to its name, it was kind of musky like a mothball. He supposed it would do, even if it was a bit girly. He'd probably like the smell a lot more on someone else.

The shampoo smelled more traditionally masculine, although the packaging indicated that it should be lemon scented and he couldn't tell. You should always be able to tell, with lemon.

He'd hoped there would be something interesting to draw amongst the lot, but although there were some good textures, none of it caught his attention. A few weeks ago any of them might have had him obsessing, but he had a hard time drawing anything but Snape at the moment. Just one more thing not to examine too closely. He put the musk can on the table anyway, and started outlining the shape.

Everything felt wrong today. His drawing was wrong. Snape was wrong, or rather acting like his usual self, which was now wrong because the world was wrong in general, making the potions master being nice somehow right. And Harry was wrong too, with his weak arm and aching wrist - and aching everything, really. The delivery man had been all wrong, not tripping over himself to help the handicapped guy like people usually were. Not that he enjoyed being fawned over, but he could at least have asked where a helpful place to put everything was.

Most importantly, Snape's explanation - or lack thereof, had been wrong. His reaction to seeing it was daytime was totally off even for his old grumpy self, as well as the surprise on seeing his own hand bleeding. If he'd been tidying up when Harry knocked then he'd have heard something, other than the one sweep of glass in an otherwise silent room. And it looked like he hadn't slept at all, which in itself wasn't unusual but added to everything else it heightened Harry's sense of unease.

He realised that he'd stopped drawing the musk, and instead Snape's shocked and haggard face stared up at him - blocked out shapes, with the beginning of detail added around one eye and the corner of his mouth. Sighing, he closed the sketchbook and pushed it away onto the table. Maybe it'd be for the best if they called it quits again. It wasn't like he was actually expecting a fix out of this, he'd barely thought at all about what-ifs and dreams that he would walk again after so long in the chair. He was content so long as he had somewhere quiet to draw, and company that wouldn't judge or pity him.

He tried not to think about how the good company part was a recent addition to his desires in life.

Maybe it was finally time to end this. Hermione would be upset, but she'd been upset before and it was ultimately Harry's choice, right? And Snape would be relieved. At Hogwarts, he'd complained incessantly about the hardship Harry was putting him through, and how much of an ungrateful brat he was. He hadn't repeated the sentiments here, but it was surely an effort for the man. He had other things to be doing with his time... Was that it, then? He should tell Snape to pack up and go back to Hogwarts?

His eyes fell on the sketchbook again and he held in a groan. Fucking hell, he didn't want to do that. He did not want to ask Snape to leave, didn't want to find out that the man wanted to leave either. He grabbed the sketchbook again and went to make tea, wondering if he'd finally gone insane like people thought. Wanting to be in the company of Severus Snape was evidence enough to get put away on the ward with Gilderoy Lockhart and Neville's parents.

He had spells left in the day's quota, but he balanced the tea tray on his lap instead of charming it to follow. He wouldn't feel even a third degree burn on his legs or crotch, but he was careful not to spill anything on the slow, careful trundle to the lab door. He knocked for the second time today, and waited patiently until Snape answered.

"May I come in?" Harry asked, to which the professor quickly, unexpectedly replied with a nod. "Would you take the-"

Snape had already turned back to the room again, and Harry raised his voice. "Oi, I've brought tea. Could you please take it so I can come in and drink it with you without giving you some extra healing work to do?"

The man turned again with a snap, mouth open to reply but his features softened and what came out was definitely not what he had been intending to say. "Of course, my apologies. I didn't notice."

"No problem," Harry said generously, holding the tray out for Snape to take. "How's the cleanup mission going?"

The room was tidy, he could see. There were no signs of explosion or fire, no black stains on the wall or weird smoke smell. The only sign that anything had happened at all was that almost half the equipment and bottles from the middle workstation were gone. There were other things missing too, like the blood testing apparatus with all its spiralling glass tubes. The workspace was noticeably emptier than the day before so a lot of stuff must have been destroyed, yet it was strange that the countertops and cupboards themselves had no damage. It almost looked like…

He glanced at Snape, who was carefully setting the tray in a space that had previously held a crate of neatly packed pepper-up potion bottles, and jars of various dried flowers labelled in Snape's cursive hand.

It almost looked like someone had gone and swiped or thrown things around in a rage.

"As you can see," Snape said, pulling out a stool to rest on. "I've removed any broken or dangerous items, but lost a day's work." He poured the tea and handed Harry a cup. Was this new or old Snape? he thought worriedly.

"How's your hand?" Harry asked next, for lack of anything better to say. Conversation really wasn't his forte. Snape put his hands forward, palms up. Both of them were carefully bandaged. "Can you brew like that? Doesn't it hurt?"

The man huffed. "I could brew under cruciatus. In fact, I may have done that once, in my youth." That had to be either a lie or a boast - Harry had barely been able to stand, let alone stir a cauldron under the curse. "Did you come here to draw? I was about to start on your potion."

Strangely, the tension that had been strung tightly in Snape only minutes ago seemed to have disappeared. He was back to his old… His new self. Maybe it was split personality disorder, Harry thought. He remembered seeing something about that in a film once. It wasn't supposed to be a real thing, but then Snape would just go and be an exception, wouldn't he. "I uh, no but… I guess so." He couldn't explain why he was here, with the man being so calm and reasonable, so he unpacked the sketchbook from his new caddy instead. He'd not taken the time to plan what he'd actually do when he got in the room, so it was as good as anything he could have thought of. "If you don't mind me watching. I'll stay out of the way."

It was therapeutic, drawing Snape at work, and not just because he let Harry chain smoke the entire time. He moved around a lot, stirring here, chopping there and turning his back for minutes on end to check that he had the measurements correct in a gigantic book. Despite all that, the expression on his face barely changed as he concentrated on his actions. Harry's pencil raced across the page to capture hand gestures, swooshing robes and a thousand angles of the same face. After the gazillionth time seeing Snape push his hair back out of his face, Harry suggested he tie it back in a very thinly veiled attempt to get more ear action.

"It'll only make my nose look bigger," Snape replied, frowning down at a cauldron into which he had dropped a pinch of reddish leaf stems. It bubbled under his gaze.

Harry concentrated on capturing that pose before replying a few minutes later. That was something good about Snape - he never expected an answer right away, though didn't always give them either. "I'll draw it smaller," he lied. "And you're the one who said you were worried about getting hair in my potion and turning me into a parrot."

"I believe it was a flamingo," the professor corrected him, but he pulled a length of cord from a drawer anyway.

Snape was right in that it did make his nose look bigger, especially in contrast to his tiny ears, and Harry didn't keep his promise to re-proportion the man's features. They fell back into silence, and Harry drew two more pages of disjointed figure sketches. He didn't dare stick to any one pose too long for fear of missing the next one, but there was enough to flesh out his favourites later. Probably enough to flesh out for days to come.

Hell if he got enough material, he'd be sorted for life. He could happily draw Snape for the rest of his days.

Ugh, that was a weird thought. He'd put happy and Snape in the same sentence together, where the happiness pertained to himself and had nothing to do with Snape being the victim of an embarrassing Weasley prank.

"Alright?"

He gave a start. Snape had stopped slicing and was looking at him concernedly. He realised that he'd stopped drawing. "Yeah, sorry. I guess my hand is just tired." He flexed his fingers to demonstrate, and found that they really were stiff. He kneaded his hands together to massage out the ache. "How long until they're ready, or were you brewing something else first?" It was difficult to tell the passage of time down here, and they'd both skipped dinner.

Snape looked over the edge of the cauldron he'd been tending, a loose tendril of hair pulling out of the cord to brush his neck. Harry couldn't help but stare. "Ten minutes, I'd judge. Should I take a look at your hand?"

"No," Harry said, a bit too quickly. "It's fine, just cramp from drawing." He wriggled his fingers again to demonstrate that they were fine, and gestured for Snape to carry on working.

As much as he'd enjoyed drawing, it was nice to simply watch for a while. The man moved more stiffly now, aware that Harry was staring, but that was part of the fun. He didn't seem bothered by the cuts on his hands.

He thought of the fabricated Snape-laughing image. What would it take to make Snape laugh for real? It was too late to make vampire jokes, but he hadn't heard him reference anything else he found funny. "What kind of things do you like?" Harry asked.

"What kind of what things?"

He waved his hands in a vague gesture that meant _anything_. "I don't know, all kinds of things. What makes you happy, other than potions?"

Snape gave him a look. "Potions don't make me happy. Being good at potions is what I find…" He didn't end the sentence, but Harry assumed he meant for a positive adjective to follow.

"What else, then? Reading, cooking? Do you enjoy dancing? Old black and white films?" Harry reigned himself in before he could suggest anything too ludicrous, other than dancing.

"I'd enjoy reading if I had the time for anything other than journals and homework, and as for cooking, I could take it or leave it. If I did dance, what reason would I have for telling the likes of you?" He said that with a smirk. "And quite frankly, I'm insulted that you associate me primarily with hobbies of the elderly. I may be twenty years older than you, but I was an angsty mudblood teen in the era of drugs and rock n' roll. _And_ I was a double spy for and against the two most powerful wizards of our era. I would be what you might call 'cool', were it not for my unfortunate features."

"I like your face," Harry protested without thinking, and Snape gave that all the notice it deserved, which was to say none at all. A blush crept up the back of his neck and he cast about for a way to recover from the embarrassment. "I mean, it's okay, when you get used to it." Argh, he should crawl into a hole and die.

"_It's okay when you get used to it,_" Snape mimicked. "That's the closest thing to a compliment this visage has ever received. Isn't that a depressing thought."

"Well maybe you should be thinking about things you enjoy, like I asked you to." Harry accused. He had no choice but to cover his face with the sketchbook to hide his reddening cheeks. "Just one thing, surprise me. Go on."

Snape poured the potion out into a cup. "I already gave you rock and roll, Potter. I've killed greater wizards for that knowledge."

Harry took the proffered cup and supposed he'd have to make do with that, but his brain betrayed him with a million new questions. Did Snape play an instrument? Electric guitar, or maybe bass. He'd believe singing as well, for a rock band anyway. There was a velvety quality to his voice, and Merlin knew he could shout loud enough for any ballad's chorus. "Is it just the one potion today?"

"Yes, and no purple potion either. You'll have to get to sleep on your own tonight."

"How long do I need to stay under observation for?"

Snape tapped the teapot with his wand and poured a fresh cup. "Why the questions? I'll keep you here until I think you're ready to go, now drink up so I can go to bed at a reasonable hour this time."

Harry grinned. "Just trying to keep you talking, in case you tell me something good just to get rid of me."

"Would it work?" Snape asked.

He studied the potion, which was a murky green colour. "Why don't you tell me and find out?" He said, and downed the potion. Snape didn't answer, which was about what he'd expected.

There were no strange side-effects, other than momentary flavour-induced nausea. Snape checked his eyes, throat and ears for "buildup", of what he didn't explain, and tested the strength of Harry's arms and hands by asking him to push against his own. He didn't say whether the results were satisfactory or not, but it wasn't long before he was rushing Harry out with more complaints about sleeplessness and a recommendation that he eat more.

All in all, not the experience Harry had expected when he knocked on the lab door that evening. As he lay in bed thinking, he realised that he never had found out what happened in the lab last night.


	9. Chapter 9

Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: meeee

Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times

Word Count: Around 33k all together

Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?

Author notes: ngl one of my fav chapters. Thanks for all your comments etc again, I have been looking forward to reading my emails every day~ From now on, the chapters will be a bit less nicely edited because I'm going to a conference this week, but I will definitely upload them dw

**THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER**

Another few days went by. Every morning Harry woke, bathroom'd with the help of his somewhat creepy invisible hands - no matter how many times he squawked at it that he could do the _wiping_ himself, it never seemed to understand his commands.

If Harry had to hear "I'm sorry, the key phrase RIPE IT MYSELF could not be recognised. Please see the manual for a list of viable commands, or say _help me, Helping Hands!"_ one more time, he would throw the hands in the bin. If he could find them first. Revelio was probably on the list of spells too strong for him to be allowed to cast while the curse was being magically exhumed.

Things were definitely a lot easier now, between the Helping Hands and his sheet topper - but then, it was a lot harder in other ways. Without charms, he was finding it harder and harder to propel himself around the house. Even as the weather was improving, he couldn't go out into the garden for fear he wouldn't make it back inside before his legs froze off. It didn't help that his left arm had gone from bad to worse, and he had to massage it to life every morning. Thankfully, as promised, Snape had been giving him an ointment for his right hand. He'd also given Harry the go-ahead to use as much of any muggle arthritis cream he liked, and begrudgingly agreed that a mix of paracetamol and ibuprofen might actually be more effective - and not mix harmfully with the other potions in his body - than a pain relieving potion.

Harry didn't often see Snape about in the mornings. Most days, he was brewing from sun up to sun down and beyond so on days when he had less to do he tried to sleep an extra hour or two to catch up. From the bags under his eyes, it never worked.

So it was with great surprise that Harry rolled into the kitchen on a Friday morning to find Snape sitting rather uncomfortably in his usual seat - wearing the dragonscale vest.

Harry ogled. "I'm dying, aren't I?" he said. It was the only explanation. Snape was giving him his last wish, before letting him know that everything had gone south and he was about to die.

"We are all dying," Snape answered, shifting in the chair. How long had he been waiting like that? He could have just come to Harry's room and knocked on the door with the promise of a surprise, but instead had sat alone in the room and waited.

Harry grinned, already reaching for the sketchbook. He'd need to get Snape to move closer to the window, where the light would catch better on the vest. Just as promised, the dark leather scales were edged with green and pink light. "You said you wouldn't wear it, it's too pretentious. You sure all my drawings aren't getting to your head?"

Snape raised his chin, rested it on his hand with one finger up his cheek, and replied deadpan: "Yes, you have convinced me with your amazingly accurate drawings, that I am beauty incarnate and it is your duty to capture and preserve my iridescence for future generations. You may bow whenever you are ready, Potter." He took a sip of tea, feigning disinterest in the clearly inferior being that was Harry Potter.

"Yes, my king," Harry said through an ear splitting grin. He bowed his head and spun his hand in a little flourish, pencil twirling. This was great - getting Snape in uncomfortable positions like this tended to reveal hidden gems in the man's personality. It was like seeing glimpses into the person he could have been, given a different life. Witty and confident even in self-deprecation.

Snape sat still for most of the morning, drinking tea and staring out the window at the same view he must have watched for tens of hours already in the last few weeks. Harry thought he'd be more focussed on capturing the moving colours on the vest than on the man himself, and it did start that way - but by lunch time he was drawing more detail on the face than the clothing.

He'd started a new sketchbook the day before yesterday, and this one was quickly filling with endless drawings of Snape drinking tea, cooking, brewing, talking and even kicking the washing machine. There was a particularly enjoyable sketch of Snape's face after Harry had feigned ignorance on what he was doing wrong. "But you said you didn't _need_ any help using a _simple muggle contraption _designed so that even an _imbecile _like me could work it," he'd reminded the man. Absolutely priceless.

If he was honest, he probably needed treatment for his brain more than his legs - he was clearly going insane. Rather than becoming bored or fed up with drawing the same face over and over, he'd become even more enraptured with it. He even saw it when he closed his eyes at night. At least he didn't have to worry about it coming to mind while he masturbated.

"Are you bored?" he asked at midday, after realising that Snape's eyes had taken on a glazed look. The man jumped, blinking slowly as if he'd been falling asleep.

"Hm? Ah no, only tired," Snape replied, taking this opportunity to stretch his neck. He looked at Harry, then out the window again. He never looked Harry in the eye when he said personal things, which is how he knew that's what was coming. "I am thankful to have survived long enough to see a little peace and quiet, and for reason to simply sit and enjoy it. I fear that when left to my own devices, I find new work and new worries. I can never seem to stop." At the last, he looked down at his open palms.

Harry's own hand stopped shading, and he stared down at it. When was the last time he'd spent a day without drawing? He'd thought that every day since leaving Hogwarts had been a day of rest, of getting away from everything that had plagued him through those years... But what if he was wrong? Maybe he was still running, just like Snape.

They had pasta for lunch - or rather, Snape did while Harry pushed his around the bowl. He got a bit of a random gift from Hermione - a deep red bowtie, delivered in a black card box via owl - as thanks for "letting me in". He couldn't think of any time he'd ever need to wear it, so he chucked it in a drawer. Then Harry went to his room to 'read' - nap - while Snape began preparations for the day's potions. When Harry rejoined him several hours later, the man was in full swing and at maximum capacity making up for lost brewing time.

"What drugs did you take?"

Snape didn't look up. He was juggling too many tasks to take his eyes away for even a moment. There were six cauldrons on the go in front of him and two more simmering on the counter behind. He was at that moment stirring two by hand and one by magic, while an autonomous knife cut the tops and bottoms off a blueish root. He didn't quite look manic, but he was definitely as close as Snape got. The perfect time to knock his guard down and get some juicy info. He'd been hoping that Snape would keep the vest on all day, but it was gone.

"As an _angry mudblood teen_, I mean. Did you take any? I won't judge." Harry continued, despite Snape's required concentration. So far as he was concerned, the professor was bringing it on himself by always refusing Harry's help. He was happy for an unsupervised mindless knife to do the chopping, but Harry wasn't allowed to so much as touch a surface without permission… Besides, he'd been suffering from hangover-like symptoms since waking from his nap so he was feeling particularly miserable.

He suspected things weren't going quite as the man had planned. Everything had been smooth sailing until the blood test, but since the resulting potion change his symptoms had grown worse each day. He had something new to take every evening, without any clue as to whether they were making progress at all.

It certainly didn't feel like progress, now that he suffered from periodic cramps, headaches and nausea. Everything he ate made him sick, so Snape was adding nutrient tinctures to the growing list of remedies to pour down his throat.

Snape didn't answer, so he sighed and slumped in his wheelchair, twirling the pencil in his fingers. Maybe he should go back to his room to draw, try and get at least a few non-Snape pages in. Or finally tell everyone they could shove the treatment where the sun didn't shine, because he wasn't anywhere near as invested in this quest for legs as they assumed. Except he was beginning to realise that he was invested in Snape, in having him here at the house.

"Weed," Snape said, pulling him from his thoughts. He glanced at Harry so quickly he might have imagined it. "Pot. I don't know what you'd call it these days. I smoked marijuana with Regulus Black on the regular. We spent every summer as high as kestrels."

Harry forced his mouth shut so that whatever noise might escape, could not. So he _had_ done drugs. He couldn't suppress his grin - Snape had been a _rebel_. As if he hadn't already known that. It was almost enough to make him forget his thumping headache. "Sirius' brother?" He asked. The one who had taken the amulet horcrux.

"The very same. We were, ah... _friends_ of a sort, as much as anyone could be in that particular group," Snape continued, taking hold of the magical knife and finishing the job for quicker than the pace it had been setting before, while reading through the book of notes he had on a stand. He even let go of the roots without slowing, to change the page. Harry wouldn't be surprised if he started using his toes next, that or cut his hand open again.

Toes! He had toes. Could he convince Snape to bare his feet? That was one part Harry hadn't seen of the man. One part among many, obviously. Most of the man, in fact. Which was fine. He didn't _want_ to see the rest of him, because that would be weird and he wasn't weird and everything was just fine.

"You said you wouldn't judge," Snape said.

Harry quickly schooled his face to normality. He'd been thinking about… something else. "I'm not. It's… Just a headache, again." He lied, hiding his head in his hands. "Carry on, I like listening to you talk."

Silence stretched for a long moment, but he didn't dare raise his head for the blush he felt creeping. Then he heard the clink of glass against metal, and Snape continued. "I took cocaine once. I was supposed to 'blend in', and had no idea at the time it was expected that I'd only pretend. There isn't a spy training academy for that sort of thing. I was picked up by aurors in Portsmouth after nearly splinching my arm off apparating right into the gents of a muggle nightclub. Albus saved me from a sentence, one of the many things I am - was - indebted to him for..."

His voice carried on in a low drone that Harry was sure he was listening to, until he blinked himself awake and Snape was gone. Two naps in one afternoon, the treatment really was getting to him. He rubbed the sleep dust from his eyes, saw it had blue and purple specks in, and flicked a piece into a small dish for keeping in case Snape wanted to study it later. It probably meant he wasn't absorbing something properly.

The two simmering potions were still steaming away, but the fires were gone under the other six, and the ingredients that had been strewn about the workspace were all put neatly away. Clearly, Snape had finished the work required on them.

His eyes fell on Snape's notebook on its stand, and he rolled a little closer. He'd better not remove it - the professor was very protective of it, and he would probably notice if it was even a fifth of an inch from its original position. With a quick glance to the closed door, Harry put the brakes on and held the arms of his chair to push himself up so he could read the words on the page. His arms shook under the weight.

Snape's spidery handwriting was even more difficult than usual to decipher, scrawled in tight knots of words that bled into one another and looked more like some kind of elven fantasy script than English. He recognised his own name, but not the words to either side. Bequist Harry? Detritus Harry? Maybe it was hiss. Hiss Harry kind of made sense in that he could speak parseltongue, but he could neither fit that into a sentence nor make out other words in that paragraph. He deciphered a few other words from that page: "interfere", "don't know why", and "treatment". A bit disappointing, really. He'd hoped for some insight to how things were going.

He gave a start when Snape called his name from the other room. He bumped down and managed to turn the wheelchair to face the door just in time to see it open. "Food, if you want it." He told Snape he'd be there in a moment, and used his jumper sleeve to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He'd barely been holding himself up for a minute.

'Food' was an inoffensive brown soup, but he couldn't keep even the first mouthful down. Snape gave him a potion to take instead, and Harry showed him the speckly eye-dust but received no indication as to what it might mean. It made him miss his brief time in the muggle hospital, when he first ran away and pretended to have lost his memory. They were always so clear about what they were doing, what they hoped to reveal from tests, and what they found. Swelling on the brain, the paraplegia, and a brewing case of lung infection from who knew where. Oh, and that he was not immunised against pretty much any muggle disease, a problem they had rectified for him with various vaccinations.

They sat together in silence at the kitchen table for an hour after Snape had finished his food, despite the fact that he must have had a million other things to do. The skritch skritch of pencil lead was the only sound that passed between them, until Snape finally rose and pressed a fist against the small of his back. He muttered something about "too old for this", and Harry hid a smile.

He refused to let Snape do the dishes. "Have a nap or something, whatever you old people do after a hard day's brewing," he said. He collected the dishes and dropped them into the sink, grimacing as his left hand cramped and tugged itself into a fist.

He placed his wand in the hand to make it feel less useless, and used a spell to clean the dishes. Another wave of tiredness washed over him as he did so, and he decided there was no shame in having an early night. He felt so weak that he only got half undressed before climbing onto bed. A grey haze crept in the sides of his vision and he tried to rub his nose with his left hand, only to notice that the arm was spasming on the sheets beside him. He tried to call out, but all that escaped was a strangled groan as consciousness escaped him.


	10. Chapter 10

Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: meeee

Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times

Word Count: Around 33k all together

Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?

Author notes: omg whaaaaaat~ First time using the phone app to update, hope it works! On a coach all day T_T

THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER*

Harry woke in a cold sweat. Pale light filtering round the edges of his bedroom curtains told him it was just past dawn, but it wasn't the sun that had awoken him. He grimaced at the dull pain in his left arm. Cramps seized the hand so strongly he could barely move his fingers from a fist into a claw. When he tried to get up, pain also lanced down his spine. Yup, just like the good old days. Great. His head swam, and he wasn't sure for a second if he'd fallen off the bed or not. Thankfully, he was still sat up when the bout of dizziness passed.

He intended to go straight to Snape at first, but then he caught the smell of urine and realised he should wash first. Or should he? He had no idea if this was serious or expected, if it was worth letting Snape know what he'd already gone to lengths to keep secret. He couldn't think clearly. Maybe a bit of warm water would help with the cramps, he decided. Not because he was vain, of course, it just made sense. There was no reason to hide the worst from Snape, when he'd seen it all before. He simply didn't want to disturb him until he was sure it wouldn't pass. That was all…

He was gasping by the time he made it to the bathroom, and he tumbled gracelessly into the tub without undressing or setting a towel out for himself first.

He was sick into the plug hole, so he pulled himself further back in the tub and carefully turned the water on to get rid of it.

After a minute to calm his breathing, he fumbled the buttons on his shirt open with only his right hand, and twisted the garment off awkwardly. He slid the trousers and pants off together, then stopped again to recuperate. The water jug felt heavy in his hands and he only filled it half full, but the hot water did relieve the cramps enough that he could use his left hand to wash himself down with the loofah while he poured with the right.

He got shampoo in his eyes, and let that be his excuse for the tears. He didn't even want to be doing this stupid treatment, and now it was going to take him right back to some of the hardest and most painful days of his life. He didn't care about his damn legs! Everything would be fine if only everyone else cared as little as he did, instead of pushing all this shit on him to fit their own descriptions of what a life worth living looked like.

He dripped water all over the floor, and soaked his wheelchair in the quest for a towel and some clean clothes, but at least the pain had abated to a manageable level. He put a second towel over his wet chair and went to find Snape. Neither man nor teapot were in the kitchen, so he guessed that he hadn't come out of his room yet.

He knocked, but there was no answer - it was still very early in the morning. Frustrated, he knocked again and was about to enter uninvited when the floo flashed behind him.

He spun, expecting somehow to see Snape standing in the half light of the now burning grate. What the fuck? Instead, there was Dylan Edwards, star chaser for the England quidditch team in all his glory. Tall, handsome and thick as shit. He also happened to be Ginny's current boyfriend, from what Harry knew from Hermione's constant insistence that he keep up with the goings on in his ex-girlfriend's life.

"Heyy, Harryy, glad I found you mate," he drawled in that annoyingly unplaceable accent. As if they'd just happened to bump into each other here of all the unlikely places, and it was completely normal etiquette to turn up at your partner's ex's house at the break of dawn uninvited. "Prepare yourself, I'm coming in hot."

Harry recoiled as the man moved towards him with outstretched arms. He did not accept the hug, but it happened anyway. At least, it tried to. "Oh, right. Sorry," Dylan said, like he'd only just realised Harry was in a chair and wouldn't be standing up to meet him halfway. He held out a fist for a bump. "Put it there, little man."

He didn't seem to notice when Harry did not "put it there", or that it was rude as fuck to call someone "little man" simply because you had to look down on them through virtue of not being a para-bloody-plegic. Dylan looked around, from Rayburn to window and back to the fireplace, commenting on the choice of curtains and the lovely countryside view.

"How did you get in here?" Harry demanded. There were only two people other than himself who could give access to his private entrance to the floo network - Hermione and Mrs Weasley. It was a sick joke if either of them had given this trollop permission.

"I used the floo, mate," Dylan said, then paused his private tour. "Oh right, you can't use it can you. It's like… A network of fireplaces you can magically travel between."

Harry felt a vein pop in his forehead, and was so outraged that despite his open mouth, no words could come out. Did he just-? How dare-?! He couldn't even finish the sentences in his own head. "You-! I know how the bloody floo works, but could you please deign to tell me why the fu- Why you came to see me? At-" he glanced at the wall clock. "Half past six in the morning." The stress was making his arm worse, and he gripped it to his chest with a grimace.

Dylan feigned surprise. "Oh man, is it that early? You know, I forget not everyone has to keep such a strict workout regime as I do. I've been up for hours. Must be nice for some, eh?"

Harry was about to explain just how nice it was for 'some', when Dylan was off again. "Heyy Professor Snape we were just talking about you, how're you doing?"

Snape stood framed in the doorway, eyes sharp though he must have been mere moments out of bed. As Dylan moved towards him for an obvious hug, he whipped out his wand and held it at arms length, eyes wide.

"Move one step closer and I will slash you into so many pieces they couldn't identify your ear from your penis."

"Oh man, you crack me up. I gotta tell Gin that one when I get home, she'll be in hysterics," Dylan replied easily, like the dense arse he was.

Harry opened his mouth to explain that they had not so much as insinuated that Snape even existed, in this house or the universe in general, never mind been speaking about him in the brief, insane conversation they'd had so far. What came out instead was "Help me."

Before Snape could move, Dylan turned back to him with a grin so wide it was in danger of splitting his head open, saving Snape the job of cutting it himself. "Oh my wand, 'help me' he says! That is the weirdest fucking thing, I swear. I was literally here to do just that, isn't that such a coinci- consid- uh, weird thing. I don't know if you can read the papers, but they are shitting all over your image right now, and it's like guyyys stop, Merlin can't you see he's got enough gravy on his roast?"

The press? Since when had he cared about the press. Jesus Christ, one of them was going to end up dead if Dylan didn't leave soon. He tried to scrub his hands over his face, then clutched his left arm again at the pain of trying to lift it. Why was everything coming together in such a momentous fuck-up of a morning? The day wasn't even properly going yet and he was already more than done with it.

"-so I thought I'd come over and get your blessing, you know. Show 'em that you're all cool with me, like I know you totally are."

"Blessing?" Harry ground through his teeth, gripping his arm tight enough to cut circulation. "What do you need my blessing for at this time in the morning, surely you can take a shit without-"

"My wedding, Harry. It's in like three months and everyone's going batshit crazy 'cause you've suddenly called in the greatest mind in the potions world to sort you out, so you can bust up the party and steal her back just in the nick of time." He spoke each word as if it were the obvious truth. "Honestly mate, I think it's totally romantic and I'd be so into it except you know, that chick is hot as fuck so I have no intention of giving her up for a good story. Not even for a great guy like you, know what I mean?"

Harry gaped. No, he did not know what Dylan meant. Did people seriously think he was trying to win her back, after they'd both chosen to break up? He'd been living his life without her for years - not pathetically pining and planning some stupid scheme to win her back like a shitty muggle romcom. He'd had nothing to do with Snape's appearance at his home, and if it had been left up to him it would never have happened. He looked at Snape to see if he was as confused as Harry himself was, but he couldn't tell. Was this some kind of joke? There had been a time when he might not have put it past Snape to do something like that, but not now... Or was it a stupid plan from someone else, thinking they knew what he wanted from his life better than he did? Who would be that dense? Surely not Snape. He'd not volunteered to come, anyway. That had been down to... To Hermione.

Hermione, who had organised the whole fucking charade, because obviously she knew he secretly wanted to get back with Ginny so they could have their happy ever after just like he'd wanted as a teenager all those years ago. Of course. The room swam and it took him a moment to gather himself. The walls had taken on a leaky grey hue that sucked all colour from the room.

His blessing was nowhere near required nor heartfelt, but he knew it was the one thing he could do to make his immediate situation twenty times less stressful. "Sure, yeah, got it." He said quickly, before Dylan could start up again, trying to mimic his speech so that he would definitely understand. "Dude, you are such a great guy. You've really convinced me by turning up uninvited at my home at an ungodly hour and totally undermining the little dignity I have. You have my blessing for your wedding, I can see now that you're just the kind of headstrong, awesome guy Ginny needs to be happy."

He tried herding the other man towards the fireplace, but the quidditch player was utterly immovable so he only embarrassed himself waving his arms at a statue. "Are you serious?" Dylan asked.

"Totally and utterly. You're clearly a perfect match for such a, uh, hot chick like her. Speaking of, you should totally get back and tell her the good news, am I right, er, dude?"

"You are totally right, my man." Dylan replied, patting Harry on his shoulder and finally starting to move. "You are the shit, little dude. I just knew you'd get it."

He turned to go, and Harry quickly added one last question, while the thought had occurred to him. "Hey, I don't suppose you've seen my friend Hermione recently, have you?"

Dylan grinned. "Oh yeah, she's a bombshell and all, Harry my boy." He turned to Snape with a grin. "I don't know what this guy has, but he has a train of chicks after it every day, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I'm gunna get out of your hair, I'll see you next time mate."

"If I ever see you again, you'll be lucky to ride a broom again your whole life," Snape replied coolly.

The man laughed. "Oh my days, you two. Soo funny, just wait until I tell Gin-" The fire swooshed green, and once Dylan was gone Harry wasted not a single second before flipping over the metal grate that held the logs inside, extinguishing the flames.

He hissed from burning his fingers, clutching his hand in his lap as Snape aquamenti'd the coals that had rolled across the floor in every direction. "Did you know?" Harry turned on him, aware that any danger in his voice was lessened by the wince he made on using his aching, cramping, burnt hands to turn the wheels of his chair.

Snape stepped backwards once, twice. "About the wedding, or..?"

Harry winced again as he propelled his chair forwards until their legs were crushed together and Snape was forced against the wall behind, half-bowing over him. "No, not about the bloody stupid wedding. Did you help her plan this? All this… shit!" He was getting so wound up it was making the cramps worse. They seemed to be crawling up his neck, harder to ignore. He had a dropping sensation in his stomach, like he'd just gone over the edge of a cliff.

The professor shook his head, frowned. "Harry, I don't-" Oh yes, he was 'Harry' now, was he?

"Let me get this straight in your head," Harry growled, ramming Snape's legs again. "I don't give a shit about that wedding. I don't give a shit about my damn legs, or Ginevra bloody Weasley. I didn't even know it was happening until a few minutes ago, and I certainly have no plans of getting my legs back just to win over a woman who was so short sighted and shallow as to believe that I was not good enough without them. In fact, I never had the intention of calling you here to play healer at all, for any reason, because I've already learned to live with myself just the way I am. All I wanted was a quiet life where I could do what _I _love, when _I_ choose. Which you'd all bloody well know if you removed the sunshine you've shoved so hard up your own_ arses_ it's shining out your eyeballs, and actually listened to anything I've said for the last _four. fucking. years_." He was breathing heavily and sweat trickled down his forehead, but he thought he managed to reverse with some dignity at least. Snape stumbled, still too shocked or confused to speak, but Harry didn't care. "I don't want your bloody potions, and I never did. You're free to go."

He spun around, dizzying himself for a moment, and made for his bedroom where he planned to brood for the rest of the day. A unpleasant tingle climbed like a hundred spiders from the small of his back, up his spine to his neck and down his arms. His hands twitched as the sensation reached them.

"Your hands-" Snape protested.

"I'll take some paracetamol," Harry shot over his shoulder - or at least, he got most of the way through the phrase before his face got taken over by the tingle, and dark blue blotches blossomed in front of his eyes. He felt his arms fall to either side of the chair, and his head roll to the side. He thought he heard Snape's warped voice calling his name.


	11. Chapter 11

Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: meeee

Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times

Word Count: Around 33k all together

Summary: Warning for short chapter.

Author notes: Short chapter, but I like it~ Not long to go now.

THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER*

"- must have been dormant, and reacted with the crupnor root to take a new hold on his nervous syste-"

"- to give you a new injection, this one will halt its progress and protect the brain. Sit tight in there or else I'll never forgive myse-"

"- wouldn't want to see you, even if he could. He was very upset… Yes, I understand that, but the fact remains. Until he says otherwise, you won't be seeing him again… Optimistically? Weeks... Oh _dear_, that must absolutely bloody awful for-"

"- never have gotten involved. I am neither altruistic nor masochistic enough to help you in some stupid game to win back a woman's heart. I hope you can believe that. Oh, what am I saying, you can't hear m-"

"- remove him from my care, he will be dead inside of three days. I am the only person in existence with the depth of knowledge and expertise in the relevant potions and muggle technologies required to pull this off. St Mungo's can shove its-"

"- a bit flattered, to be honest, though looking over them I'm not certain I should be flattered at all from the way you drew-"

"- could I possibly have to say to the newspapers? I don't read their drivel, and wouldn't believe them if I did. I don't believe what they write about me, so why on Earth would I believe anything else they publish? Let them write whatever they damn well-"

"- so entwined that removing the curse could cause catastrophic damage. Never mind his bloody legs, it would be safest to regress it to its previous dormant state to save his _arms_… What? Well it's a good thing I couldn't give a flying fig about your _expert opinions_ Doctor, or he'd have died thrice over in the last f-"

Harry groaned. His head felt like a plank of wood after a karate class. The room swam into vision hazily, pale yellow walls affronting his eyeballs. He tried to turn over but his hips felt stuck. Right. His legs.

"Fucking pain the the arse," he muttered, voice thick. His mouth tasted awful. He'd clearly fallen asleep in the spare room after what felt like a heavy night of drinking. He must have been lying on his left side, because that arm was dead and numb. He felt around with his right hand for his glasses, but felt something soft and stringy instead. Hair? Oh god, it was hair. He recoiled in disgust from what could only be a dead rodent or.. or something larger and rounder with much finer, longer hair?

He felt like he should remember what it was, but his head was pounding. Where were his glasses?

Another man's groan made him jump back in surprise. The dead rodent was a man. There was a man on his bed, he thought in alarm. He really _had _been pissed last night.

"Ughh, Harry, what..?" Whoever it was, was just waking up with what sounded like a hangover as bad as Harry's.

The mattress tipped, angling him towards the person who had just climbed up beside him. Evidently they had been kneeling or sitting beside the bed, then maybe fallen asleep like that. He found himself picked up and wrapped in a pair of hard, skinny arms. "Merlin, you're alright. You're awake."

Harry tried to pull away from the hug, but was only released to arm's length. His vision was starting to clear now, and he could see the dark shape of thick black hair framing a face so pale he could only see it squinting. It was… Snape? What was- oh.

Oh! Just like that, everything came crashing back. Hermione coming over for tea, Snape moving in, going to town, slipping in the bathtub, so many drawings, then there was- the wedding. Hermione's stupid plan, and Snape calling his name. He felt like there was more, something else he should be remembering from afterwards, but there was nothing between then and now.

He took a calming breath and let Snape hold him upright for a minute. "Do you have a pain potion? I think my head exploded. And my glasses. You got my glasses?"

His left arm was still numb, the thought of which sent an unpleasant crawl down his spine. Snape released him gently back down to the pillows, though he tried to stay upright. He just didn't have the strength for it. "I have your glasses here, let me just…" Snape awkwardly slid the glasses onto Harry's face, sliding a finger over his left ear when the temple tip caught against it.

Harry couldn't even swat him away, and his sight didn't seem much clearer even through the glasses. He blinked a few times, then yawned as a wave of exhaustion crept over him.

"Don't try to get up," Snape instructed, though the likelihood of that was infinitesimal. "I'll bring you some water."

He didn't remember falling back asleep, but the air felt different when he came back around and Snape was in full robes. Why did he think the man wouldn't be? There was a glass of water by the bedside, and he could tell from the pearlescent shine on the beads of condensation around it that it had been charmed to stay cool. He tried to sit up, discovered that he could barely move his left arm, and then groaned instead.

"Harry!" Snape rushed to his side, just noticing he was awake. It was like he had been worrying over him - evidently he'd gone insane while Harry was sleeping.

"Help me up," he instructed, voice croaky. Merlin, what awful thing had crawled into his throat and died there? He managed to lean up on his good elbow, which unfortunately turned him to face the wall. Instead of helping, Snape was trying to push him back down, talking about rest. Harry cut him off to insist: "I am sitting up."

Snape sighed loudly, but complied in helping - well, carrying really - him into a seated position with his back against the headboard. He then picked up the glass and insisted on holding it while Harry drank, this time not listening to his protests. "Just a sip at a time, I don't want you being sick again."

Again? He frowned, at that and the other thousand unanswered questions vying for attention in his confuddled brain. He asked the most immediate one. "What's wrong with my arm?"

"It will be fine," Snape said, taking said arm and rubbing a thumb across the palm to demonstrate that Harry could still feel it, then turning the motion into a hand massage of sorts. "The curse decided to return with a vengeance, but we managed to batter it back down and you should get back all or most of your previous strength."

"We?"

Snape summoned the stool and sat down, still holding on to Harry's hand. "Myself and a team from St Mungo's."

St Mungo's? Something about that niggled at Harry, and he tried to remember what. "You were arguing," he said faintly.

"At times," Snape agreed. "There were some who felt that it was the perfect time to remove the curse entirely, without threat to your brain stem which I had fortunately shielded. I'm uncertain now whether it was the right course, but at the time I decided that the risk of extra damage was too great. You could have lost the function of your arms as well as your legs, though you may regret that we did not try to-"

"I don't." Harry said. "I've said it before and I will say it again, I did not ask for any more healing and I didn't want it either. I just wanted to get on with my life, as much as I could." He didn't mean to sound accusatory, but there was no avoiding the truth that Snape had put him through second hell, even if he'd purposefully let it happen so that he could draw the man. Oh God, and _Hermione_. How could she…?

"I am aware of that now, although I should point out that at no point during the many weeks of treatment until you fell ill, did you ever say as such to me," Snape replied reasonably. "Had I but known that my presence was unwanted, do you think for a moment that I would have stayed?"

Harry looked away, hunching his shoulders up to cover his neck. He swallowed - was Snape going to leave, now that he knew? Of course he would. There was no reason for him to stay here when he had the school to get back to.

"Harry?"

He shrugged, couldn't bring himself to look back at Snape. "I didn't want you to leave," he murmured. Quiet enough that he was sure the man couldn't hear, even as he hoped otherwise. He felt tired again. Snape was right, he should not have sat up in the first place. If he hadn't, he could have used the blanket to cover his face.

Snape moved his head closer, leaning forwards on the stool with a light frown. "Pardon? I think I misheard you."

Harry looked at him angrily. Asking him to repeat something like that! "Your hair is greasy again," he said instead, then: "When are you leaving?"

Snape sat back abruptly. "Not for another week. I'll see you up and about before I go, just in case those pesky mediwitches get any notions."

"Okay. That's…" His heart clenched, making it hard to breathe for a moment. He'd known for a while now that he wanted Snape to stay - and that he would not - but hearing it hit him with unexpected force. This was it, then. Of course he would go, there was no reason for him to stay. Nothing, no one, to stay _for_. It was just Harry. "Fine."

"Yes. Yes it is," Snape echoed.


	12. Chapter 12

Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: meeee

Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times

Word Count: Around 33k all together

Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?

Author notes: Last chapter is tomorrow! O: The journey is almost over T_T Thanks to everyone who's been reading along, I've really appreciated all the feedback and company.

THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER*

He was stuck in bed for another two days, and was not allowed the sketchbook until then either. Not that he'd been able to stay awake for long enough periods to make good use of it. He simply sat or lay in the corner of the workroom, where Snape could keep an eye on him night and day, and watched the man brew. He supposed he should call him Severus, now that he was 'Harry' again. He kept meaning to try, but there wasn't much cause for saying the name when he was the only other person around. Who else could Harry possibly be talking to?

To top it off, they weren't talking all that much anyway. There was nothing uncivil between them, no ill feelings. It was simply that whatever ease that had existed in weeks prior had drained away, leaving in its place an uncomfortable tension. He didn't know what to say, or how to say it. Should he apologise for not telling Snape about the charms sooner?

Then there was Hermione. Unlike with Snape, he knew exactly what he would say to her. He'd come up with several rants in his head, taken the best of each and reworked them into what he thought of as the _mega rant_. She'd learn never to meddle in his life again, that was for sure. So far though, he hadn't worked up enough of whatever emotion he needed, to want to see her again. She'd sent notes, which he'd had Snape burn without reading, and he'd totally blocked the floo so that not even Molly Weasley could get through.

"How is your arm?"

That's all they talked about now. His health, his appetite, did he need anything… No rock n roll cocaine stories. "Fine," he snapped, then grimaced. What was he being so annoyed about? He moderated his tone. "It's feeling stronger. Easier to lift, but I'm still having trouble with fine movements." He held up said arm to demonstrate, slowly clenching and unclenching his fingers. The pinky and ring fingers in particular were so stiff that they barely moved at all.

Snape took his hand, something which had become normal between them now. Contact. He gently pressed the stubborn fingers inwards until they touched the palm. "Does it hurt?" He asked. Harry shook his head. "Good. I'll fetch your chair. You'll be glad to hear that I'm declaring you fit enough to eat lunch in the dining room."

Lunch was ham sandwiches, a welcome reprieve from the endless onslaught of soups for breakfast, lunch and dinner that Harry had been suffering through so far. He was halfway through his first when Snape told him that he was allowed to use magic again. "You're kidding," he said, dropping the food onto his plate.

"I assure you that I am not the type to kid," Snape replied. He slid Harry's wand across the table to him.

Harry grinned and snatched it up, only to put it away in his caddy and cast wandlessly. Oh, it felt good. He recast the wheelchair charms he had been missing, enunciating the spells so quickly one after the other that it sounded almost like a chant. Then he set the teapot train going and accio'd a sketchbook, pencils and a carton of cigarettes. He lit one with an unnecessarily large flame, and finally sat back. Dear Merlin, he already felt ten million times less cold without the heat sink of his uncharmed legs.

When he was finished, Snape pushed the plate of sandwiches towards him. "What were those charms, _leniter cali_-something? _Pernix_? I've never encountered them before."

Oh, shit. He'd put his foot in it now. Well, not that it mattered - Snape was leaving in a few days, anyway. "Just ease of life stuff," he said casually, opening the sketchbook to a new page and making a show of choosing the correct pencil. "Warming for the legs, anti-collision charms, lightness on the chair so it's not so hard to push around. Stuff like that."

"You-" Snape cut himself off and took a few long seconds. Harry glanced up long enough to see a throbbing vein in the man's forehead, and ducked his own head low. "I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how much of an _utter imbecile_ you have been, and I will accept some degree of the same for myself for not searching out that information before vetoing all magic. Let it be known however, that I am very displeased."

Huh, New Snape was so much harder to rile up than old Snape. "Yeah, it was pretty inconsiderate of you, if I'm honest," Harry said. "If you want to make it up to me, there's two weeks' worth of piss-soaked bed sheets in the shed, if you fancy popping them in the wash."

It wasn't that he was trying to make the man angry, exactly. Just that… It would be easier to say goodbye. Everything would be easier if it was just Old Snape, and they'd spent the entire time arguing and shouting, and throwing books at each other. It would be easier to see him go.

But this wasn't Old Snape. It was… Severus. So there was no angry reply, only a huff and then the sound of tea being poured.

He had meant to keep drawing for a few hours, but it quickly became apparent that he wouldn't be staying awake that long. After nodding off briefly a few times in his chair, Sn-everus insisted on sending him back to bed.

Another couple of days rolled by, with Harry almost back to his old self - if not in strength, then in occupancy with his sketchbook and a certain potions master. It was easier to talk, now that he had the book again, his shield from awkwardness.

"Will you be going right back to Hogwarts?" He asked. There were only a couple of months left to the school year anyway. Well, three or four. It was odd that Severus had come during term time anyway, but it made sense that he hadn't waited for Summer, considering Hermione's plans. He had to be well enough to storm Ginny's wedding, after all.

For once, Severus was reading instead of brewing. His eyes sped back and forth across the page for a minute, and Harry smiled at the thought that he was rushing through the page for him. Finally, he looked up. "Hogwarts?"

"To teach," Harry clarified. "Are you going straight back, or did you take the whole term off?"

Severus bookmarked his page with a long black-plumed quill, and set the book on a worktop. "I had planned on returning in September," he said. "But I have become something of a pariah within the community of late, and considering what has been published about me recently I think even Minerva will have a time reinstating me."

Harry sat up straighter, outraged. "But we exonerated you. The mark is gone, there's no more Death Eaters," he argued. Why did the Daily Prophet and bloody Witch Weekly have to keep dragging this stuff out? Couldn't everyone just move on?

Severus sighed. "Not that, Harry, although I will admit that my dark history has contributed somewhat." He paused, clearly uncertain, then waved a hand in the air. "It's this, actually. You. _Us_."

"Us?" Harry replied weakly. Was there an _us_, a something with - between - them? A Harry and Severus?

"Half of wizarding Britain thinks that I reignited or recast the curse on you as revenge for the death of my master," he explained. "And the other half either thinks that I've killed you or that you've been dead for years anyway, and this is all a ruse for who-knows-what purpose. An atrocious notion, but there have been numerous articles and exposés over the years declaring the hidden truth about you. You've died of everything from the common cold to dragon fire and-"

"But you've been helping me," Harry said, dropping his sketchbook carelessly into the caddy. The pencil missed, bounced and went skittering across the floor. "If it wasn't for you I'd be dead or paralysed."

Severus bent to pick up the pencil and held it in his lap, twirled it in his fingers. Fiddling was the word Harry might have used to describe it, for anyone but this man. "If it weren't for me, you would not have been placed in danger in the first place. It was nought but arrogance on my part, thinking that I could cure curse damage so many years after the fact. It is unheard of, and I put you at unnecessary risk for my own pride in solving a problem you did not need me to solve."

"Did you know it was going to fail?" Harry asked. "The treatment, I mean. Did you know it wasn't working?"

The pencil stopped twirling. "I-" Severus began, but stopped whatever he was going to say. "I suspected, but hoped that I was wrong. The blood test revealed that some residual dark magic from the curse had survived, dormant rather than dead as I had previously thought."

"Is that why you trashed the place?"

Severus looked at him in surprise. "That's... Yes, I did. I will not pretend otherwise," he said. "You must understand, I had been working on this hypothetical treatment for, well, as long as you've been in that chair. It was years of work based on the assumption that the curse had been destroyed, and from the moment that cauldron turned black I knew that none of it would work. So I began working on a new treatment, something to tackle the curse while managing and blocking the resulting symptoms, but - I thought..." He shook his head.

If Hermione were here, this would be the time she would have put a hand on his leg for comfort, but it was only Harry so they sat in silence until he could think of what to say. "Why didn't you just stop it? You could have left, I wouldn't have-" minded? cared? been disappointed? Those were lies. "thought ill of you for it."

"Pride," Severus answered easily. "I have been tasked in protecting you many a time through the years, and until now I have never failed in doing so. It was conceit on my part, and I put my own desire to- to be the one to save Harry Potter once again, above your actual safety."

Harry considered Severus for a long moment. He was a good man. Of sorts. And though Harry hadn't been the one to ask him here, he was just as responsible as Hermione for keeping him. It was only fair he should do something to help the man in return for what he'd tried to do. "And you want to go back to Hogwarts to teach?" He asked. "If you could?"

"I have scarce any choice. It is what I have always done, where I have always been." Snape replied.

_You could stay here, with me._

Harry shook the words from his mind. Totally absurd, Severus Snape would never want that. Would never want _him. _Crazy, stupid thought.

He summoned a nice thick piece of parchment, flattened it out on the table and began writing.

_To Mr Barnabas Cuffe,_

_On the subject of my recent demise…_

No more than two hours later, Severus and Harry were sitting near the hearth, waiting for their guest.

Severus was making a good show of not being at all affected, while Harry was a bundle of nerves. "Maybe you should be standing behind me when he comes through," he said, flattening his hair with a hand for the millionth time.

Raised eyebrow. "So that you might protect me?"

"No, like - you've got my back, kind of thing. To show that I trust you." Harry pushed his chair against the other man's legs to convince him to stand. He got an irritated flicker in response, then an over-the-top sigh.

Severus creaked to his feet. "And I suppose I should place a hand on your shoulder, akin to an authoritarian father in a family portrait?"

Harry rearranged his blanket so that it fell more flat over the knees. "Ugh, no you're right. We should both be sat. Equal footing, sort of thing - I don't want anyone standing over me." He looked up. "Is this jumper okay, do you think?"

"What does it matter?" Severus asked exasperatedly, stopping mid-sitting motion to inspect said jumper. "You haven't cared what the likes of Cuffe or Skeeter think about you before now - in fact, I remember very specific words to that effect just last week." He tweaked the collar of Harry's shirt where it poked out from under the jumper, and ruffled his hair. Harry tried to duck out of it, but all his flattening was undone in a second.

"Stop that, I'm trying to look tidy - and it does matter." He swatted Severus' hands, then caught them to hold them still. Their eyes met. "I don't care for me, or what they say about me. I care about _you_," he said fiercely.

"That's quite the declaration, my boy."

They sprang apart at the unfamiliar voice, Severus with wand already in hand. A tidy looking man in his sixties or seventies watched them with sparkling eyes over a grand moustache. "My apologies, gentlemen," he said, half a smile tweaking his lips. "Silent floo powder, trick of the trade, albeit not a common one. Sometimes I find that arriving without notice for just a second or two allows me to capture the real story. I do hope you'll keep it a secret just between the three of us - I wouldn't want any of my contemporaries catching on."

"Good afternoon," Harry said before Severus could open his mouth and say what both of them were thinking. "You must be Mr Cuffe, Editor in Chief of the Daily Prophet."

They shook hands, though Severus kept his arms crossed. "The very same. I'll just take a seat, shall I? Won't you excuse me, Prof- ah, Mister Snape?" Without waiting on a reply, the journalist settled himself down in Severus' chair, forcing him to stand beside Harry instead. "So what's all this about you not being dead then, eh? That's been a terribly good story, I must say - but perhaps we can get a few more out of you before then, hum."

"I've heard you haven't been saying very nice things about Severus," Harry said, and called the tea train. "I don't appreciate the allegations, if I can be quite honest."

"Oh-hoh? Just the one sugar for me, if you'd be so kind. Thank you." Mr Cuffe plucked his cup from the air and took a sip. "Just lovely. I should tell you, we can't control what we sadly are forced to write. If the information and evidence points to foul play, then it is our sworn duty and masters of the press to ensure that the truth is known."

The truth. Severus sniffed in distaste, but thankfully held his tongue. They'd already been over this - Harry was the only one allowed to talk once the man got under their skin. Seeing as that had been the immediate effect of his appearance, Severus would just have to suffer in silence. "I'm glad to hear of your dedication to the truth, because if for whatever reason I thought you were less than totally dedicated to real news reporting then I'm sure you understand that I couldn't in good conscience give The Prophet this kind of exclusive interview again."

Mr Cuffe's mouth twitched. "Exclusive, ah?"

"I don't see anyone else in my sitting room."

The man smiled broadly. "Of course, well you'll find no fault with me or my paper, I assure you. Shall we begin with a few obvious questions to see what, ah, _truths_ we can uncover, hmm?"


	13. Chapter 13

Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: meeee

Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times

Word Count: Around 33k all together

Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?

Author notes: Oh-ho-hoh /laughs in gay/ The ultimate chapter. Thanks so much to everyone who has been reading along and suggesting stuffs. For all y'all who were asking for a happy ever after that didn't necessitate getting rid of Harry's disability to magic everything better - you are my jam and my butter. Thanks for the reviews and favs and follows, makes me wanna write more fanfics in the future. Let me know what sorts of stories you'd like to see next! Also sorry there's not more actual snarry content, planning a bonus chapter but haven't written it yet. Also publishing this a few hours early bc at this conference and I won't have life left in me soon xD

THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER*

The next morning, Harry entered the main room to find Severus sitting at the table, red as a tomato and the day's paper shaking in his hands. Uh oh, how had Mr Cuffe twisted it to make him _that_ angry?

Harry moved round the table to have a look, but Severus folded the paper down so he couldn't see. "You don't want to read it," he said.

"Oh come on, it can't be that bad." Harry snatched the paper, and they tussled with it for a few moments until Severus finally relented. "I'm the one who doesn't care, remember?" He unfolded the crumpled paper.

PROPHET EXCLUSIVE: POTTER SCANDAL DEEPENS AS WAR HERO DITCHES WEDDING PLANS FOR SECRET DARK WIZARD AFFAIR

_In his first media interview since the Battle of Hogwarts, hero Harry Potter seems to have taken a leaf from Mr Snape's book and switched sides. Read on for the full, exclusive story on this shocking turn of events..._

He read the article through twice, unsure whether he should laugh or be outraged. It was definitely the latter he felt when he saw the accompanying image. Not only had the Editor in Chief brought with him silent floo powder, but also apparently a silent and flashless camera. "I don't remember looking at you like _that_," he said. The Harry in the picture was positively star-struck. "Or anyone, for that matter. Can they do that? Just edit pictures however they like? There must be some kind of independent complaints committee or something…"

"The Commission for Quality in Journalism," Snape said, voice muffled. He had his head in his hands, elbows on the table. Harry couldn't help but grin. They'd tried for years at school to break the professor, and all that time it was this easy.

He flipped through the rest of the paper, to see if there were any other stories of interest, particularly about the Weasley wedding he had finally convinced everyone he wasn't crashing. "Right, we'll write them a letter then," he said.

"It's headed by Barnabas Cuffe."

"Okay, let's not write a letter then. Talk about conflict of interests... Did you see what Dylan said?" He asked.

Severus groaned. "_I thought it was weird that he gave us his blessing, but it totally makes sense now - they were rockin' vibing, if you know what I mean_," he quoted. "I have read the whole article, Potter."

"Harry," Harry corrected. "And at least no one thinks you murdered me any more."

"No, they simply think that I am… _in relations_ with you," Severus whined, as if that was somehow worse than being a murderer.

Harry folded up the paper and put it aside. He'd get a good laugh out of it later, and if he was quite honest he liked the picture. Despite knowing that he'd only grabbed Snape's hands to stop him from messing up his hair, it looked altogether different in the photograph.

He hesitated before placing a hand on Severus' back. "It's not that bad, right? We can-"

Severus jerked up. "Not that bad? Of course it is! I'm not some pervert who chases after men twenty years my junior - and an ex-student, no less."

"Well yeah, it's a big gap now, but it wouldn't matter by the time we got old," Harry argued. "And imagine everyone's faces if we gatecrashed the wedding together. Imagine _Hermione_'s face."

"You can't seriously be suggesting-" Severus stared at him, then stood abruptly. "That's it, I've had enough of - of whatever this is. If this is some prank or elaborate plan to avenge Ms Granger's misdeeds, then you may leave me out of it. I am going back to bed."

It was only mid-morning, but he stormed to the laboratory anyway, slamming the door shut behind himself. Harry flumped back in his wheelchair. He hadn't planned on having that conversation, but if he had then it would not have been planned to go that way. Not at all.

He took the paper back out with a sigh and settled down to draw the moonstruck pair on the front cover. He would need to fix the whole Severus issue later, but it was best to give him some space first.

It was two hours later, just before lunch, that Harry finally worked up the courage to knock on the wooden door. There was no answer, which was what he'd expected so he went straight and unapologetically to plan B. "Oh god," he called loudly. "Oh my god, it hurts so bad." This was quickly followed by the sound of crashing wood, and the door being thrown open.

Harry grinned and held up the bottle of whiskey he had brought. Severus tried to close the door again, but Harry blocked it with a spell. Not so helpless any more. He forced his way past the other man, still grinning, and accio'd two glasses from the kitchen. "Let's have a chat."

"I have no desire to partake in this conversation," Severus said, following him in. He refused to sit on the stool Harry levitated over.

"That's fine, if you don't want to talk then you can just listen." Harry told him. He poured a small measure into each glass, sat back and threw The Daily Prophet onto the floor in front of his wheelchair. "That," he said, "is total and utter rubbish. They don't know me, they don't know you and they sure as hell don't know _us_. But there is an us. I don't know what it is, but it's there and that's… That's fine.

"I wouldn't dare presume anything on your side, but I want to make it perfectly clear that I am neither joking nor tricking you. I'm not making stupid plans, because if you didn't notice already that's really not my thing any more. I've had enough of drama and hardship, and I just want to have a quiet, calm life. For a long time, I thought that meant I would have to live the rest of my life alone - but I was wrong. You proved me wrong. I don't know what this is, or how I feel.

What I do know is that you are great company. I like having you around. I like talking to you, watching you and drawing you. Merlin knows you're an ugly bastard, but I could draw you every waking moment for the rest of my life. I am well and truly obsessed."

"Harry-" Severus began, but Harry cut him off.

"No, you listen here. I'm not trying to say that I… love you, or anything like that. I'm not saying I want to, I don't know, have sex with you or whatever, and we both know I couldn't even if I did want to. But I _don't_ want you to leave. I don't want to exist here without you. Even though you almost killed me, the last few weeks have been the least miserable I've had in years, and the thought that I have to go back to how it was before is doing way more harm than that stupid curse did." He took a deep breath. "So that's it. Either you're staying here, or I'm coming with you."

Severus sat heavily on the stool. After a moment, he said "I don't suppose I have any say in it?"

Harry wanted to say that no, he didn't _actually_, but it wasn't in either of their best interests to lie. "If you feel uncomfortable with the way I feel, then I can't exactly stop you."

"No, it's…" Severus nursed his glass, frowning. "I am not uncomfortable. Perhaps unfamiliar would be a more accurate word. I am not accustomed to having my presence desired, nor to traversing a path of such ambiguous, unspecific wants as you have declared."

"Well, what do _you_ want then?" Harry asked, trying not to get frustrated. "I'd be happy with just about anything, so if specificity is something you need then you should give it."

Severus said nothing, just stared into a glass that hadn't so much as touched his lips. Had he pushed too hard? It was hard to tell, even with New Snape - but because he wasn't a patient person, and because pushing was all he could do, he ploughed on. "Do you want to leave and never ever see me again?"

It took entirely too long for an answer to come, but it did. "No."

"Do you want to see me like, a couple times a week for tea and biscuits?"

Severus rolled the glass in his hands. "That would be adequate."

Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure lots of things would be _adequate_, but is it what you want?"

"No. I don't know. You've given me no time to think," Severus replied.

Harry caught his eye. "Time to think up reasons why we shouldn't, you mean."

"Exactly."

He was going to strangle the man. "I've given you two hours to do just that. Do you know what I think?"

"I'm sure you're about to tell me."

Harry rolled forwards, scrunching the newspaper under his wheel. "I think you know what you want and it's exactly what I want too, but you can't bring yourself to say it out loud because you think it's impossible. And if you don't say anything, then you won't be losing out because if you don't say it then it's not real - and if it's not real, then it can't disappoint or hurt you." He stopped, his knees a bare inch from Severus'. "I think you're scared."

Severus straightened his back. "And if I am? What will you do?"

"I'll kiss you," Harry replied. "Or rather, you'll kiss me 'cos I can't reach. And then we can both say if that's something we'd like to do again, and that would be a start.

"And we'll eat lunch together, so we can decide if that's something we want to do again, too. And you'll read a book while I sketch you, and we'll drink tea and I'll smoke. You'll try to convince me not to, but I'll do it anyway just to piss you off. You'll brew potions, and maybe we'll take a train to - I don't know, Peru. We'll climb up to Machu Picchu to see the ruins, and I'll levitate my chair the whole way while you walk, so by the time we get to the top you'll be exhausted and I'll be fine. I'll probably laugh at you and we'll take the portkey back down and wonder why we didn't go up that way in the first place. I haven't got an invite, but I'll bring you as my plus one to Ginny's wedding, and I'll get your robe stuck in my wheel and you'll be annoyed about it but secretly you won't mind, not really. And I'll draw everything. I'll draw you smiling, and shouting, and laughing and reading and fuming and... and making sarcastic comments about whatever stupid thing I've just done or said.

"Does that sound adequate? If that was an essay on _Things Severus Snape and Harry Potter Should Do Together_, would it get an Acceptable?"

"I'd grade it poor for grammar," Severus replied. "And you'd turn it in late, with more doodles than words."

"And then you'd kiss me?" Harry said, tilting his head to the side with half a smile.

Severus leaned forward a fraction, then stopped - along with Harry's heart - and then slid from the stool to kneel in front of Harry. He reached up a hand, and Harry caught it before the man could change his mind, pulling it up to touch his cheek. "I can't," Severus said.

"Okay."

Harry leaned forward as far as he comfortably could, took hold of Severus' chin and did it for him. His lips were as expected, stiff but soft. Harry smiled against them and gave the man a second chaste kiss. He willed Severus to return the gesture, and was rewarded with a nudge and an opening. He sucked Severus' lower lip between his and licked it, and the man gasped so he slipped his tongue inside. Severus moved his hand to the back of Harry's head, sweeping through his hair, and Harry copied the motion. The kiss deepened, slow and languorous, until Harry broke it with another smile.

"You can open your eyes," he said gently. "I'm still here."

Severus did.

"Adequate?" Harry asked.

"It was satisfactory."

He grinned. "Want to do it again?"

Severus brought their lips almost to touching again, his breath caressing Harry's skin, but he said "I do believe that lunch was the next item on the list."

So they had lunch, and then Severus read while Harry sketched him, and they had dinner. Harry smoked - and Severus didn't tell him not to, just to be contrary, and he brewed and they went to Machu Picchu. The portkey was under maintenance so they had to go back down the muggle way, and Harry laughed for years to come about the put-upon expression on Severus' face. And they didn't go to the wedding, because the weather was so much nicer in Spain, and the reporter from Witch Weekly took a great photo that looked like Severus was trying to drown Harry in the sea, so they went to Norway instead. And they argued and fought, and sometimes wondered if it would be better to break it off, but they didn't because secretly they didn't mind. They laughed - Harry more than Severus, but both were known to happen from time to time, and Harry finally got to draw Severus laughing, and it was uglier than his original picture but it didn't matter.

And when Hermione asked what exactly they were together, they each looked at the other for an answer, and neither of them had one. And Harry drew it all, every moment, until the house was drowning in identical black-covered sketchbooks, and Harry refused to throw a single page away because every second of their lives was precious and beautiful.


	14. Epilogue

Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: youuuu

Ratings and Warnings: none for this epilogue

Word Count: Around 35k all together

Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?

Author notes: Uh so I was done with this story, but a bunch o' peeps gave some feedback around not really getting a glimpse of Severus' feelings at all. I thought ok if the fic gets like 10k views or something then I will write an epilogue chapter from Sev's pov. None of my fics had gotten even 5k views before so I felt pretty safe. And then I checked on this a while later and it had like 14k and I was like oh. . oops. So I told myself I'd do it if it ever got to 20k. Which it now has, and I didn't expect that either so I wrote this in a hurry last night.

**THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER**

* * *

Severus Snape was a man of many emotions. Well... Sarcasm, mostly. If that could be called an emotion - he certainly had enough of it in his mind to call it so.

There was something beautifully satisfying about dancing the line in its vocalisation, in leaving the recipient of his amusement questioning its existence.

Harry's eyes narrowed at him, and it was a struggle to keep his expression solemn. He was a statue of sincerity, the very image of innocent concern. Of course, he could remember a time when it would have been no struggle at all. He was losing control with age, but didn't much find that he minded. Sometimes - on occasion - he even allowed a laugh to escape. Not now, naturally. He had no desire to agitate Harry, which he supposed was a strangeness in itself.

The other man huffed, lowering his eyes to the sketchbook in his stubby yet somehow elegant fingers. "Yeah well, just you see when they ask me back. Can't even put one accessible toilet in the entire bloody stadium? That's the last time I do something for that Slithe- imbecile."

Imbecile? Severus thought, his amusement growing. Someone had his big boy pants on today, using three syllable words. He turned away, pretending to search the packed bookshelf beside him in order to hide the upturned corner of his mouth. He removed a loosely-bound packet of parchment from the shelf and dropped it carefully onto his lap, murmuring a spell to undo the brown string that tied the collection.

He read automatically, mind running through the twisting patterns of ancient glyphs without pause as if it were plain modern English. There was a special skill to reading Eravarian, which not only had its own alphabet but a totally unique pattern on each page, and he did not consider himself the least bit arrogant for acknowledging his mastery of the language. His thoughts however were elsewhere. Words flowed through him without stopping to be processed.

Sarcasm was not the only emotion with which he was afflicted. There had been a growing number of them in the last year - or more precisely, emotions that had previously never seen the figurative light of day were now rearing up out of the soil under a certain someone's nurturing glow.

It was quite terrifying, when he dared to think about it. Positivity was vulnerability. Optimism, hope… Caring. They were terrible, fragile things, so dependent on the continuation of his current circumstances. It would have been sufficient to make him turn tail, if not for his damnable loyalty and stubbornness. He had chosen his path, had been committed to it from the moment he'd floo'd into Potter's hearth and laid eyes upon him.

What a horrible mess.

Even now, he couldn't place exactly what had caught him. Despite his extensive preparations, he hadn't been all that invested in the whole helping-Harry-Potter-again idea. He'd expected to arrive and be sent straight off again by the arrogant little fool, relished the prospect of righteous anger that would have fuelled him through the rest of the year. Oh, the _rants_ he could have had. He'd even practiced tirades in front of the mirror; epic monologues on the genealogical origins of Potter's ignorance and ingratitude, going back at least three generations. Ah, the wasted research… It still pained him. Then again, he was sure to have use for it someday.

It had been all he looked forward to for weeks, and then-

Harry had looked so beautiful, so regal and composed, sketching away in his book as the window's morning sunlight framed him. If Severus had been a painter then the moment might have inspired him. It was still a shock, knowing that Harry felt that way about _him_. There had been no arguments, no childish games or purposefully annoying behaviours. He'd found in the man a sort of kinship. A shared understanding of pain and expectation.

He'd never intended… Couldn't have hoped… For this. _Us_. They had no name for it bar that.

He caught familiar movements in the corner of his eye. Harry seemed not to know how his body language changed when he drew Severus, becoming more furtive and defensive. As if he thought even now that he might be denied the right. Not that Severus had discouraged that line of thinking.

"What," he said in a slow drawl, without raising his head, "was the purpose in my purchasing that extraordinarily expensive, if admittedly aesthetic, figurine - if you insist on continuing to draw me in its stead?" Not to mention the fact that they were in one of the world's most beautiful libraries, and even this small side study was filled with objects from around the world, scattered amongst the books on the gorgeous mahogany shelves.

The pencil stopped for barely a heartbeat before resuming at a faster pace. It was the same every time. He caught the end of a quietly grumbled sentence from Harry: "-eyes on the side of his bloody head..."

He couldn't help it, the quick quirk that tugged at his lip. Though it lacked subtlety, he was left with no choice but to cover his mouth with a hand, pretending to cough.

"The dust's terrible here, isn't it?" Harry said, not bothering to hide his own quivering mouth.

Severus decided generously to pretend he hadn't noticed the tone. This moment was going to end up in the sketchbook, he knew. Not the one in Harry's lap. The other one. The _secret_ one that Harry didn't know he'd found. The first page was soppily - sickeningly - scrawled with the words "Reasons I Love Severus Snape", and it was filled to the brim with sketches he had been sure at first were pure imagination. He was smiling in some of them, in others he looked only fond, or showed wrinkles of amusement around the eyes in an otherwise stoic face. In yet more, he was clearly upset or angry. That night so long ago, when he had trashed the laboratory and answered the door with a bleeding hand, it was in the sketchbook too.

If only he'd known that Harry wanted his company more than his cure, he could have saved them both a lot of heartache. It had been pure foolishness to continue with treatment after the blood test - foolishness and arrogance both. He had managed to convince himself that he could do it, with a tweak here or there, despite the reawakening of the curse. He'd put Harry in danger for his own desire to play hero. For this man to _see him_ being the hero. It was downright shameful behaviour.

"Can we go to the ruins again?" Harry asked, cutting through his thoughts.

Severus sent him a scowl. "I'm reading." He refocused on the pages in his lap, trying to find the last glyph he remembered seeing. He couldn't remember a one.

Harry nudged him with his chair. "No you're not, come on. You were staring into space for like twenty minutes - and don't you tell me you weren't, look." He tilted his book for Severus to see, flipping back through the pages quickly to show numerous sketches of a pensive potions master. "I was drawing you for ages. Ruins? I'll get you an ice cream. Choc mint chip, your favourite. You can't say no…" He sang the last few words, wiggling his eyebrows with a half-grin.

Severus held out for as long as he could, which was all of three and a half seconds, before retying the parchment. Oh, how far he had fallen. There had been pride in him once. Resilience and willpower. They were insignificant rock pools drowning under the tide of his... _other_ feelings. "Muggles don't sell choc mint chip, and you know it. They have the proportions quite reversed."

"Alright, I'll get you a chocolate cone and stick some chewing gum in it," Harry replied patiently, as if to a favourite child.

When in the world had he begun allowing people to speak to him in such a manner? Severus really was a lost cause. Seeing his too-slowly-schooled face, Harry sent his best peacemaking smile. It was difficult to hold ill towards such brightness.

Harry turned his chair with a soft sigh, sketchbook already tucked away in his bag. "Come here," he ordered gently, holding his hands up like a child wanting to be carried. That was not his intention, of course. Severus stood to slip the research material back into the slot from whence he had taken it, and then leaned down to his - ah, his Harry.

The man pulled him down the rest of the way until their lips met, his hands slipping through Severus' hair to the back of his neck. He closed his eyes, drank in the intimacy. He leaned on Harry's chair to take pressure from his aching back, and simply enjoyed the slow but shallow kiss. When it was done, he nudged Harry's nose with his own and didn't move away. He loved these moments, when they were so close as to be blind to each other and he could almost imagine himself to be a more handsome, deserving man. He felt like one when Harry kissed him, and the loss pained him when they parted.

Harry smiled against his cheek, and Severus valiantly attempted not to reciprocate the action. "I love you," the man whispered, only just loud enough to hear.

Severus' heart jumped, leapt, danced, sank, all at once. The result was a hitched breath, giving away more than he would have liked Harry to know. Love. That was certainly… a word. A noun, an adjective that suddenly, clearly, stunningly encompassed and described all of those non-sarcasm emotions that had been floating about causing havoc in him for so long now. It just had to go and be bloody love, didn't it. As if he wasn't vulnerable enough already.

Well, he supposed there was nothing he could do about it now.

"You don't have to say it back," Harry said, like the clueless Griffindor he was.

Severus dropped to his knees, because it was the only way he could keep his creaky old back from complaining as he took Harry's face in his hands. "You're a fool, from a long line of fools", he said. His voice was quiet and raspy, but he could add nothing to strengthen it. "Only a moron of the most boneheaded, cretinous of calibres could do something so stupid as feel such a thing for the likes of me."

Harry sighed again. "Sev-"

"I will however, make an allowance just this once owing to your unfortunately moronic lineage, for which you can hardly be held accountable-"

"Severus."

"_Furthermore_," Severus said loudly, then dropped his voice again. It was a library, after all. "I shall permit your continued stupidity and go so far as to add that I also… That I- Ah, in a way, I suppose can be capable of my own… That is to say…"

Merlin, he was reduced to a stuttering awkward teenager. It really was simple, all he had to do was say three small, easy words. One syllable each. It was hardly advanced arithmetics.

This was the problem with being a man of many emotions, especially when one was not used to admitting to them. They were simply too numerous and too large. They filled him to such bursting that there was no room to feel them out, to reach between them and pull out the words that would sufficiently describe how utterly, _utterly_ lost he was to them. He was powerless, as he always had been in such matters.

"You don't have to say it," Harry repeated, moving his hands along Severus' jaw to his chin and lifting it. "I already know."

So he didn't say it, at least not that day. There would be time to say it later. They visited the ruins, and Harry insisted on trying to hold hands as they went. Severus settled for an orange flavoured Calippo in the end.


End file.
